5 True Scary Appalachian Trail Stories

[Music] way back when i was in my mid-20s in the late 1980s i used to be hardcore into hiking and camping but given that my home state of rhode island is like the size of a postage stamp relatively speaking anyway i exhausted a lot of the more local campgrounds pretty quickly and began to long for something a little wilder i've heard a lot of great things about the appalachian trail how hiking it was a badge of honor for a lot of people who shared my passion for the outdoors my uncle and my dad's side had

hiked the whole thing over the course of a summer back in the 50s and he never shut up about it whenever he'd see me and the subject of hiking came up he made it sound absolutely magical like there was true wilderness out there just waiting to be explored and so i made up my mind to mimic the journey my uncle took over one summer i couldn't get the time off of work to walk the whole trail but if i timed it right i could walk the southern portion of the trail from harpers ferry to asheville

north carolina in just a couple of weeks fulfilling a hiking dream i've had for what seemed like an age then in the summer of 1989 i traveled down to harpers ferry by bus and by train with all my hiking and camping gear on my back after picking up a few final supplies from my journey south i hiked up onto the appalachian trail and kicked off the journey of a lifetime needless to say the first few days walk were pretty tough but i got used to the level of strain pretty quickly and i'm telling you i've

never been as hungry or tired as i was on those first few nights up in appalachia i brought a hammock with me as i'd heard some pretty intense stories about the bugs down in west virginia nasty little beasties with names like the assassin bug which basically has a big spike for a mouth or cow killer ants whose stings are so painful that they're said to have taken down an actual cow once or twice that had to be pure rumor but it was intimidating nonetheless so every night after my day's hike i'd take it out of

my pack unroll it and tie it up between two trees before getting some shut eye it didn't make for the comfiest night's sleep i'd ever had but i wasn't complaining especially if it kept the black widows off me but since i was out in the woods most nights without cover every little hoot or squawk from nocturnal animals would wake me up it was irritating sure but it was part and parcel with being out there bonding with nature so this one night i wake up pretty sure that i'd heard something rustling on the leaves close by

i shifted my hammock peering over my shoulder and then feel my blood run cold as i see this big dark shape looming over me i froze for a moment feeling my eyes adjust to the darkness and i could tell that it was a person just standing there statues still staring at me in one fluid motion i rolled out of my hammock and hit the ground running bolting off into the trees i didn't care who it was standing over me whoever does that kind of thing definitely did not have the best intentions and i wasn't about

to stick around to make small talk either i ran a safe distance into the woods caught my breath circled around and then started to sneak back towards my camp my intention was to make sure it was clear before gathering up my stuff and moving on to a safer spot i took it slowly scanning the darkness for any sign of the shadowy figure eventually finding my way back to my camp to discover it was completely deserted with all my gear apparently untouched i had this horrible feeling in my gut that whoever been standing over me had

just backed off to watch from a distance and would wait for me to come back and get my stuff before ambushing me if they weren't there to steal for me it was obviously something else they wanted and i dreaded to think exactly what that was but regardless i managed to grab my stuff and get out of the area without anyone managing to sneak up with me the next few days i walked hard and fast exhausting myself in my attempt to get as far away from the area as possible after that i figured i was safe

no one had bothered me during the previous few days hiking so i figured i'd be okay from there on out but i was wrong hideously wrong every single night since that incident had me struggling to get to sleep i kept picturing that person standing over me just staring down at me in the darkness i had no idea how long they'd been there or what they had in mind for me and i was just glad that i got out of the area but still i didn't start to be able to feel safe again until i bought

some fishing line from a sporting goods store in one of the small towns i passed through on my way down the trail which i could then use to make trip wires that ran between the trees close to where i was camping then a couple of empty cans of beans strung together and whoever snagged their foot on the wire would make the cans clank together alerting me to their presence i had one big scare when a fox snagged the line and i rolled out of my hammock with a knife in hand ready to take on whoever

was about to creep up on me only to see the furry little guy scurrying away into the moonlight i did end up laughing to myself about that one and after that i stopped sleeping with my knife in hand because all it would have taken was one little slip and i'd be in a whole world of trouble about a week went by and i just about gotten over the whole shadowy figure in the night incident i had to be almost a hundred miles away from where it had taken place and i'd had no trouble at all

on any of the other nights and saved the incident with the fantastic mr fox that just scared the life out of me so with the help of my little tripwire alert device i just started being able to get to sleep without any trouble again but that night i woke up suddenly to find that i couldn't move properly i couldn't bring up my arms up from my sides at all and the material from the hammock seemed to be pushed up right into my face i was cocooned by it like the fabric was wrapped around my entire

body this is only just registered in my half awake brain when i heard the sound of fabric snapping then boom i hit the dirt completely knocking the wind out of me i had no idea what was going on struggling to break out of the hammock only i couldn't that's when i felt the hammock being dragged across the forest floor then it hit me whoever was dragging me across the ground had bundled me up in my own hammock with some kind of cord cut the ropes tying me to the tree and was proceeding to drag me

off to god nosewear i screamed at the very top of my lungs forever it was to let me out of there but no one responded all i could hear was the sound of the hammock's fabric rustling against the forest floor i knew i had to think fast or whatever was going on wouldn't end well at all like i said i had stopped sleeping with my knife in my hand or nearby me in my hammock because that was just an accident waiting to happen so i had absolutely nothing handy to cut through the material and make

my escape or so i thought in a flash i had an idea a few years back my dad had gifted his old wristwatch to me it was a reliable thing but i had just one complaint about it the little latch that kept it tied to my wrist was worn with age and was actually a little sharp from the years of use i'd managed to accidentally poke myself a few times with it in the process of picking it up or putting it on and one time it actually drew blood i knew what i had to do

i unbuckled the watch as quickly as i could which wasn't easy considering i was getting dragged along the ground in the pitch darkness and managing to pinch the sharp clasp between my thumb and index finger was even harder but still i managed it and when i did i began to rake it against the fabric of the hammock it was just as effective as cutting canvas as it was at cutting skin and although it took a good few tries it didn't take long until i could see the subtle glow of the silvery moonlight from the other

side i kept cutting as quickly and quietly as i could until there were so many cuts that i could rip myself out of the canvas cocoon like some terrified newborn bursting out of a womb you'll have to excuse the analogy but in retrospect that's exactly what it seems like happened i was born again that night i got a second chance at living escaping that hammock meant life because i know that staying in it would have meant death for the second time in about 10 days i found myself bounding through the dark woods only that second

time the terror in me dwarfed what i had felt the first time around i don't even know how i managed to escape assuming it was the same figure standing over me the first night they had somehow managed to track me for more than a hundred miles and sneak past my trip wires they were a far better woodsman than me probably physically fitter too i just know by the time i reached a house with its lights on i turned the look behind me as i was banging on the door there was no one else around the

family who lived there were kind enough to put me up for the night after i called the local sheriff who came out in the morning to help me retrace my steps through the woods we found my camp but not the hammock and although i told him everything in excruciating detail i could tell he was skeptical of my story he even suggested that i'd gotten lost and frightened in the dark and had just ended up jumping at shadows maybe even had a bad dream that seemed a little too vivid because of the lack of proper rest

but i knew it was real just in the way my palms are sweating right in this back i'm certain that night really did happen the way i remember it i never did finish that dream hike the next day i caught a bus back towards harper's ferry then took the train all the way back to providence and i only ever told a handful of people who happened out in the trails i figured not many would really believe me they'd just think i was telling a campfire tale or something i didn't tell my hiking uncle for the

longest time i thought that he'd just gloat or whatever tell me that i didn't have it in me to do something that tough but when i finally did share my story i got a reaction that i definitely wasn't expecting he just nodded and told me that there were some nights that he didn't think that he'd make it out alive either that there are people who live up in those mountains who have been outlaws for generations who live outside of society outside of the natural order of things he'd have some pretty close calls himself at times

bumping into people who weren't nearly as friendly as the majority of west virginians and sometimes seeing things that he knew well he wasn't supposed to see but just what those things were he didn't seem to want to say i always told myself that i'd try my little appalachian adventure another time maybe when i'm a little older a little wiser and when i've got something a little bigger to defend myself with the trail will still be there waiting for me but then again so might be whoever tried to drag me off that night randall smith was

raised as an only child in the small town of pearisburg virginia the townsfolk remembered his mother as a nice lady who kept to herself earning a living in a laundry room at the gau's memorial hospital but for some reason for the first few years of his life randall's mother chose to dress him in girl's clothing we can only speculate as to the effect this had on the young man but what we do know is that his schoolmates would later describe him as something of a loner as well as a habitual liar he often told tales

of money he didn't have or of spurious sounding adventures he'd been on this led his peers to calling him lr an acronym standing for lying randall during his youth randall would often go walking the appalachian trail alone finding solace in the rolling hills and deep primordial forests after high school randall earned a living doing odd jobs around virginia some might have fretted at the instability but randall relished it as it gave him the freedom to ramble where he liked and just like in his youth he would spend the majority of his spare time wandering the

appalachian trail sometimes disappearing for days at a time the trail stretches for just over two thousand miles from georgia to maine and attracts thousands of hikers every single year most of which see the trail as a kind of rite of passage for serious hill walkers most use the trail as a means of escaping their busy workday lives taking comfort in the peace and serenity of nature but at times the trails are anything but serene and there have been a number of hideously violent crimes committed in the area perhaps the most infamous being the 2008 abduction

and murder of meredith emerson by a psychopath drifter named michael hilton which took place in a region known as blood mountain during the spring of 1981 two 27 year old social workers from maine by the names of susan ramsey and robert mountford decided to hike through appalachia to raise money for a mental illness charity on their travels they had made friends with another hiker on the trail but had to part ways shortly afterward however they had agreed to meet up in peersburg randall smith's hometown to catch up and grab a bite to eat together but

when susan and robert failed to show up to the meeting their hiker friend became concerned and contacted the police to report the missing deputy sheriff tom lawson gathered up a handful of other deputies and then went up onto the trail to begin the search on the way they spoke to a number of other hikers asking each if they had seen anyone fitting the missing couple's descriptions most said no but one group said yes reporting that they had seen a man and a woman talking with a rather strange looking individual who seemed to be acting in

a bizarre manner near the wapiti shelter a small log structure that had been constructed so that weary hikers could rest a while before continuing down the trail the deputies headed straight for the shelter finally reaching it on may 30th of 1981. by that time it had been 11 days since the last sightings of the missing hikers and unless they were experienced in bushcraft the chance of them reappearing unharmed were rapidly dwindling while searching the small wooden structure one of the deputies noticed what appeared to be a blood stain on one of the floorboards the men

then fanned out searching the area intensively until they came across a small clearing that contained a pile of leaves one that looked like an attempt to cover something up they kicked away the leaves revealing a cloth sleeping bag that had a large heavy mass inside of it when they cut it open they discovered it was the corpse of susan ramsay the female half of the charity hiking couple a day later with the help of a sniffer dog the body of robert mountford was found buried near a tree stump also wrapped up in a sleeping bag

robert had a single bullet wound to his head fired from a 22-caliber pistol while susan had been stabbed several times before being bludgeoned to death their bodies then dragged from the repeated shelter to the spots that they were buried nearby deputies found susan's camera they had hoped that the film might contain clues to who had murdered them but found it had been pulled out and stolen however susan's backpack was also found a backpack which contained a paperback book that was taken for fingerprint analysis most of the prints obviously belonged to susan but one set belonged

to someone else entirely investigators initially believed they belonged to robert mountford but were shocked to find that they did in fact belong to none other than lying randall smith sheriff deputies immediately traveled to randall's home he wasn't around but the deputies had a search warrant and smashed their way into his place to make some seriously disturbing discoveries not only did they find bloody clothes and some items which evidently belonged to the murdered hikers they also found a great deal of pornographic materials and most disturbingly some hospital instruments that apparently been fashioned into makeshift toys deputies

also found a handwritten note stating that he had been kidnapped and was going to be executed but analysis showed that this had been written in randall's own handwriting and was no doubt merely an attempt to throw the police off his scent the race was on to find him before he could hurt anyone else days passed and police had no luck in locating randall smith all of his usual haunts reported that he had not been seen in days with rangers and police scouring the virginia section of the appalachian trail with absolutely nothing to show for it

either the effort was exhausting and deputy sheriff tom lawson found himself needing a break so he took his family on a brief vacation down a myrtle beach in south carolina but in some bizarre twist of fate deputy lawson ended up getting a call from the department back home saying there had been an arrest in south carolina of a man that was strongly suspected to be involved in the hiker's murders an arrest in myrtle beach of all places deputy lawson hurried to check the suspect out when he arrived he was told that the arrested man claimed

to have amnesia and could not remember his name or how he ended up in myrtle beach but that he was covered in insect bites in a way that was consistent with someone having hiked the appalachian trail for days on end insect bites that had been scratched so much that they were in danger of becoming infected in order to get the man to reveal his identity the deputies hatched a cunning scheme they told the man that they could not get him the medical assistance he required without a medical consent form that he was required to sign

when given the form the man scratched out a name onto the paper randall lee smith he wrote the police had found their man randall smith was just 27 years old when he was extradited back to virginia on charges of first degree murder at first it seemed as if randall would get the death penalty if convicted but in a strange turn of events he accepted a plea bargain that resulted in him getting a 30-year sentence instead of being executed one of the victim's fathers was an episcopalian minister who accepted the use of the plea bargain and

was generally against the idea of randall being executed it was also thought that the plea bargain was the better option seeing as there was a complete lack of motive in the killing with prosecutors believing that this would weaken their argument in the event of a trial the resulting reduced sentence caused outrage among the local community and fury among hikers nationwide out of the 30-year sentence randall smith only ended up serving 15 and was released in 1996 after reportedly being a model inmate who never caused any problems in prison he walked out of prison a self-confessed

murderer but a free man and returned to pearisburg as a pariah randall lived with his mother until her death in the year 2000 after she passed he became more and more of a recluse although just like in days gone by he spent much of his free time up in the appalachian trails and on more than one occasion was spotted chatting with hikers who were no doubt completely unaware of who they were talking to but even if they did know randall smith the murderer by his image they may not have recognized him now by that time

he was 54 no longer the portly young man who had been convicted of killing susan ramsey and robert mountford he was skinny pale and walked with a slight limp and his time in prison had hardened what had once been boyish smirking features then in march of 2008 randall seemed to give up on life entirely he took all the pictures down from the walls of his mother's home packed up a few belongings then walked off into the woods he took only a few change of clothes some camping and fishing gear and bow his dog for all

intents and purposes to the people of pearisburg randall smith had dropped off the face of the earth there one day totally vanishing the next but to them it was simply one less thing they had to worry about so barely a peep was raised a few months later on may 6th two fishermen named scott johnston and sean farmer were catching trout up near their favorite spot on a place called brushy mountain it was a beautiful summer's day perfect for outdoor activities and feeling a little closer to nature all was peaceful and serene when suddenly they spotted

something coming through the trees towards them it was a middle-aged man with a slight stoop one who warmly waved before approaching their campsite the man introduced himself as ricky williams scott and sean followed the unwritten code of appalachia by inviting ricky to sit and share a dinner of freshly caught fish ricky happily obliged them explaining that he was starving and that he'd been in the woods for weeks by that point and hadn't eaten substantially in days scott and sean could see that this was no lie ricky was pale and skinny and the dog that accompanied

him was evidently equally hungry with its ribs protruding from its fur the campsite the three men had dinner at was only a mile and a half away from the wapiti shelter the site of the hikers murders way back in 1981 as they ate scott and sean asked ricky about his life ricky replied that he was graduated top of his class from virginia tech university and had gone on to write highly advanced scientific papers for nasa pertaining to complex new methods of space flight he also claimed to be extremely wealthy owning multiple homes in florida and

south carolina where he would spend time with his wife who was a runner-up in several miss usa pageants scott and sean listened skeptically recognizing that the man's appearance and his tall tales about a high-flying career were most likely a complete fabrication to them it was almost as if the man who sat before them was in the habit of lying it came so easy to him like it was second nature as the hours passed and the sun began to dip below the horizon scott and sean began to wonder why their guests hadn't started to make a

move back to his own campsite which was apparently a few miles further upriver one of them made a comment that he better head back before the inky black of night had truly descended falling and injuring yourself on such a secluded stretch of trail could mean real trouble for even the fittest young man but death for an old timer ricky stayed for about a half hour longer before finding his feet thanking scott and sean and beckoning his dog to follow come on bo for the man's name was not in fact ricky williams the man's name was

randall lee smith and just as he began to walk away from the campsite of his generous fisherman hosts he pulled a 22 pistol from his pocket and pulled the trigger four times the first bullet struck sean in the temple the second shot slammed into scott's neck the men tried to run but still the shots came the third torn to sean's chest cavity while the fourth hit scott in the rear of his neck blood poured from wounds caused by red-hot lead having ripped through their bodies but still the fishermen hurtled into the woods for safety scott

had managed to find cover behind a tree as shawn reached his truck parked in the grass just a few yards away but as he climbed into the cab of the vehicle and slammed the door behind him he saw the face of randall smith through the window to his left randall raised his 22 pistol pointed at sean's head and once again pulled the trigger but no shot rang out the gun hadn't fired randall smith had run out of bullets as the potential murderer began to reload the 22 pistol shot gunned the truck's engine and put the

pedal to the metal screeching towards a nearby road with a bullet wound in his head when he found the road his headlights illuminated a figure standing in the middle of it but it wasn't randall smith it was his fishing buddy scott he had survived his wounds and had cut shawn off at the road in order to escape sean threw open the passenger door and scott dived in still holding on to the open bullet wound to his neck that leaked fresh blood upon the upholstery but although they were in the process of escaping certain death their

chances of survival were horrifyingly slim scott was bleeding to death from the wound to his throat sean had been shot in the head the nearest hospital was over 30 miles away and they were driving on an uneven dirt road in the middle of near total darkness their headlights the only thing to guide them in wood so deep they had no cell reception whatsoever and to top it all off scott had left his truck behind with the keys in the ignition there was every chance that randall smith was following them having tasted blood looking to finish

them off it took just five minutes for scott and shine to find a house with lights on inside but to them those five minutes felt like an eternity as they pulled up outside it scott left from the cab of the truck and began to hammer on the front door screaming for hover was inside to call 9-1-1 the homeowner a woman named melissa miller initially thought it might have been some kind of home invasion and was reluctant to actually answer the front door but when she did she screamed for her 20 year old son randy to

fetch some towels before calling 9-1-1 20 minutes passed after the first 9-1-1 call and still no ambulance had arrived there was a pile of blood-soaked towels sitting in front of each wounded man when scott asked to use the miller's family phone to call his mother and father he believed with all of his heart that he'd never see them again but shortly afterward an ambulance did arrive and with it came a police officer the emts tried to stabilize both men ensure that neither would bleed to death in the miller's family home but it was impossible and

they soon called for helicopter support to airlift both men to a hospital for emergency surgery scott still bleeding from his neck wound was loaded onto one of the medevac choppers by that point convinced that he was going to die he could think of no other reason for such drastic measures his life must have been hanging in the balance his fishing buddy sean had been shot in the head and chest but it was he that was being airlifted if his wounds were more serious than a straight-up headshot he knew his chances of survival were bleak as

the helicopter took off he felt his mouth filling with blood and heard one of the emts talking over the radio saying she didn't think he was going to make it he felt himself slipping away and said at one point he thought he was already dead but as the helicopter landed in nearby roanoke and a blast of downdraft from the rotor blades hit him as he was unloaded he knew he was still alive thanks to the swift actions of young randy miller who had not only helped with fetching towels but had also managed to get a

hold of one of randall smith's missing posters the police knew who the shooter was later that night a virginia state trooper was driving along a road about eight miles away from piersburg when he spotted scott's stolen gray truck going in the opposite direction the trooper turned in the road turning on his lights and the truck picked up speed dramatically in an attempt to evade him but in his frenzied effort to escape justice randall smith ran the truck off the road and flipped it upside down the trooper pulled up alongside the overturned truck with his gun

drawn well smith was still strapped inside of it the same 22 he had tried to kill scott and sean with lying on the ceiling of the truck cab just out of reach the trooper caught a glimpse of randall's eyes with his flashlight and later described them as the coldest he'd ever seen in a chilling twist of fate the unconscious murderer was then taken to the very same hospital that scott and sean had been airlifted to and when he awoke tried to claim the shootings were in self-defense when randall was well enough to be transported he

was taken to the medical wing of the new river valley regional jail in dublin on may 9 2008 then a few days later a jail officer went to give randall his dinner but when the crazed killer didn't retrieve his meal the officer called his name once then twice but there was no answer the officer went to unlock the cell door finding randall lying unconscious on the floor in front of him medical staff hurried to revive him but their attempts were in vain and shortly afterward randall lee smith was pronounced dead at the age of 54

years old forensic analysis showed that there were no obvious signs of foul play there were no marks on his body whatsoever in all likelihood randall had simply died of natural causes so distraught at the prospect of spending more time in prison so disappointed that his victims have survived the attack and deprived him of the thrill of killing that he had simply given up on living his funeral service lasted just 30 minutes and to avoid any angry displays by the local townsfolk the service was only announced after he was buried randall was buried next to his

mother while his dog beau scratched in the dirt during the graveside ceremony you may be pleased to hear that beau has since been adopted and given a home with a loving caring family who feed and walk him regularly perhaps the most terrifying thing about randall lee smith is that it seems that there were absolutely no motives to his murders scott and sean could well have been the kindest people randall had met in his entire life two people who shared food and warmth with the total stranger owing him nothing but giving nonetheless in return randall tried

to take everything from them in a sneak attack that changed both men's lives forever it seems that randall killed simply for the sake of killing because it thrilled him because it made him feel powerful there was no rhyme or reason to his bloodlust and not even those who were kind and generous to him were safe mankind has long fabricated beasts demons and malevolent spirits that have only ever been confined to the page or screen an attempt at creating a kind of uncontrollable fear a simulation one intended to distract us and comfort us because the reality

is much more terrifying real monsters walk amongst us looking and sounding just like our friends neighbors and family but they are not driven by love and they are hungry geraldine largay kept a detailed record of her journey along the appalachian trail during the summer of 2013 in a small black notebook due to her pace she had adopted the trail named inchworm but for a slow walker she had still managed to cover an immense distance hiking almost a thousand miles from harper's ferry in west virginia with a close friend of hers named jane lee george largay

geraldine's husband of 42 years was driving ahead of them arranging care packages and supply pickups for them occasionally ferrying them to motels for the relief of a hot shower or a night in a soft bed but on june 30th as jane and geraldine reached new hampshire jane was forced into an early end for an adventure due to a family emergency but geraldine insisted on continuing the hike the trail was almost at an end and she would not give up so easily jane would later say that geraldine had a poor sense of direction had taken a

wrong turn on the trail more than once and would become flustered whenever she made such mistakes then while she was all alone geraldine ended up taking another wrong turn up in maine wandering into terrain so wild that it was used by the state's national guard for military training she kept writing after she lost her way even as her food supply dwindled along with her hopes of being found she ended up waiting nearly a month in the main woods for help that would never come geraldine had left the trail in one of its most rugged sections

with thick underbrush and fur trees packed so tightly that the landscape became a maze of greenery you step off the trail a little then turn around and it's very difficult to see where the path is reported a volunteer who spends time doing trail maintenance in the area if you didn't know which way the trail was you could easily walk in circles for hours knowing she was hopelessly lost geraldine sought high ground in the hopes of getting a signal on her cell phone lost since yesterday she texted her husband off trail three or four miles call

police for what to do please she tried over and over to send messages but none went through in some trouble another text george read got off trail to go to the bathroom now lost she asked him to call the appalachian mountain club to see if a trail maintainer could help her but again the message was never received around july 23 she set up her tent atop sticks and pine needles under a canopy of hemlock trees so thick that they obscured her from rescuers searching from the air she tied a shiny silver blanket between two trees

possibly to attract attention but the foliage was simply too dense for the blanket to be seen from the air geraldine was scheduled to meet her husband on july 23rd in wyman township but she never showed the following day george reported her missing multiple agencies and volunteers would take part in the search for her using horses and helicopters to traverse the top terrain agonizingly it would turn out that geraldine was less than a mile from the trail itself close enough that in all likelihood searchers had probably passed by her campsite without actually realizing it infuriatingly the

rescuers were bombarded with a number of false tips regarding the missing woman's whereabouts some purported that she had been murdered and strung up in the trees saying that they'd seen her with sketchy looking men who might have intended her harm with others suggesting that she had fallen in a river and drowned a number of psychics called to report visions of her including one who incorrectly insisted that she had broken her ankle other psychics injected that they were contending that geraldine had been spotted at a woman's shelter in tennessee this actually diverted valuable resources away from

the search with accusations that her husband was a batterer when in reality he had never laid a finger on her for the entirety of their marriage her last entry reflected a strikingly graceful acceptance of what was coming when you find my body please call my husband george and my daughter carrie she wrote it will be the greatest kindness for them to know that i am dead and where you found me no matter how many years from now it will be two years before a logging company surveyor stumbled upon her campsite and remains solving a mystery

that had tormented her family and defied teams of experienced searchers miss large a retired nurse from tennessee had survived a month on her own longer than many old backwoods hands thought possible before dying of exposure and starvation her dead body was found on october 14 2015 still inside her sleeping bag in a campsite that she had kept tidy until the day she passed away around her lay her final belongings including a blue and white bandana a rosary birthday candles lighters dental floss a sewing kit and two water bottles one still containing water two weeks after

she was found geraldine's family visited the area in which she tragically lost her life they left a white wooden cross decorated with messages etched in black marker one written in a child's handwriting saying i wish you were it is quite simply terror inducing that even in a country as populated and settled as the united states a person can still go missing on a simple mountain trail and vanish almost without a trace only to be found months later having starved death in a country where there is such abundance of sustenance and civilization humankind has tamed more

and more of america since the nation's founding but it seems that some particular areas of the country will always be wild [Music] hi everyone my name is lena i'm malay and i spent a summer in the united states as part of the summer school program at virginia tech university there were lots of extracurricular activities too i mean what else were we going to do with our spare time so i got to know a lot of my classmates rather well while doing all sorts of cool things with them one of the most amazing things i got

to do while i was there was going to hiking up on the appalachian mountains i managed to get some pictures the most stunning views i'd ever seen in my life and walking those hills will remain one of the most memorable times of my entire life but i'll never forget my time in the appalachians for another reason too because it included one of the most hair-raisingly terrifying experiences of my life one which left me shaking for the amount of adrenaline running through me so at one point we're taking a break from hiking eating some snack and

taking some sips from bottles of water that didn't manage to stay very cold for very long i'm chatting with my best friends on the trip soul and gabby when we hear some wrestling in the foliage next to us the next thing i hear is our guide whispering don't move no one move a muscle they'd be confident to the point of cockiness on the trail up until that point a real like outdoorsy manly man type but hearing the fear in their voice made my blood turn to ice which was no small feat on such a hot

day i did as i was told i didn't move i just sort of shifted my eyes in the direction of the wrestling and when i saw what came out of the bushes i couldn't even scream i was so scared it was like i'd been turned into a stone statue albeit one that trembled uncontrollably with fear it was a bear a black bear and it was walking right towards me i suppose i've been attracted to the smell of our snacks from what i understand black bears don't have the best eyesight but they do have an incredible

sense of smell and even though we weren't cooking any food it must have been close enough in the area to be able to pick up on the scent i stayed as still as i could as it walked up to me but when it stood up on its hind legs i swear my heart nearly stopped beating altogether i had no idea they could do that like i kind of knew black bears were smaller than grizzlies or polar bears and they were considerably less aggressive too but oh my god that thing wasn't small when it stood up

like that i swear i was almost six feet tall i was trembling and holding back whimpers of fear as it started to sniff at my hijab knowing that if i made one wrong move if i didn't keep my cool and stay perfectly still it may just small me to death right there and then it was probably the most terrifying moment of my life so far it sort of lost interest in me after a few moments moving on to my friend's soul who just dropped the sandwich he was eating immediately the bear sniffed at it but

ignored it then did the same thing to her standing on its hind legs and sniffing at her face and neck and suddenly like out of nowhere i just lost interest in us and wandered off into the woods again we all breathed the heavy sigh of relief as it left us thanking god that it wasn't hungry or ballsy enough to have attacked us never in all my years have i had such an up close and personal encounter with such a powerful and wild beast it left an indelible mark on me giving me a profound respect for

nature even more so than i had beforehand i'm just so thankful that it wasn't a grizzly or something out in the pacific northwest because if it was i probably wouldn't be here to tell this story when i was a kid growing up in north carolina i was a member of the boy scouts of america i know it might seem corny but my time in the boy scouts honestly made for some of the fondest memories of my childhood and as much as my friends these days like to make jokes about the deviant proclivities of my former

scout masters nothing remotely weird or unsavory ever happened with any of them there was a lot of fishing camping field craft and community service just some good old-fashioned wholesomeness that gave my parents a break from me from time to time well all except for this one time so one summer my scout troop goes on this big camping trip up into the smokies for those unfamiliar with the term the smokies or great smoky mountains are part of the greater appalachian mountains and are also home to the great smoky mountains national park one of the most highly

visited national parks in the country the name smokies comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the mountain tops appearing as large smoke plumes from a distance and originate from organic compounds that are exhaled by the local vegetation but excuse the high school science lesson i'll get on with it so we're up in the smokies having a good old time when one night while sitting around the campfire after dinner one of our scout masters decides to tell us a creepy campfire tale he starts telling us the story of utlunta which is the cherokee name

meaning spear finger or one with the pointed spear spear fingers supposedly live in the western part of north carolina right up in the smoky mountains where we were camped at the time and her name referred to the long slender sharp finger on her right hand which she used to slice up her child victims whose livers she ate raw as legend has it she apparently clutched the stony skin on her right hand tightly because her heart was actually hidden in her palm there our scout master goes on to tell us how because spearfinger's skin was made

of stone she was invulnerable to the arrows of the cherokee and her footsteps sounded like thunder as she walked along the mountainside whenever her deep voice rumbled around the hillsides it would scare all the birds away a warning sign to those she was hunting as she sang her favorite song [Music] or liver i eat spearfinger was also said to be able to take on the appearance of her child victims family members often taking the form of a kindly old woman to trick her victims into feeling safe around her she would then law the child to

sleep running her fingers through their hair to calm them before stabbing her pointed finger through the back of the neck or through the heart she would then rip out the livers of her victims before feasting on them leaving her mouth ringed with fresh blood needless to say by the time our scoutmaster had finished telling us the story we are all completely and utterly terrified and only managed to stop freaking out once he got not his old guitar and sang us a few songs but that night while back in my tent with a buddy of mine

i found myself totally unable to sleep i kept imagining that if i did spearfinger would come rip my tent open and stab me in the heart with her long sharp stony finger all before tearing out my liver and eating it then right as i was about to drift off to sleep a bright light lit up one side of her tent i was completely frozen in fear for a moment whispering for my sleeping buddy to wake up and i was totally unable to rouse him i carried on staring at the side of the tent wondering where

the bright light was coming from as it seemed way too intense to be from someone's torch and then i just about let out a whimper of fear when i heard a hissing sound and saw a shadow passing over the fabric of her tent i called out to them asking who was there but no one said a thing in response and there was just another faint hissing sound as the figure seemed to creep closer and closer to our tent then i saw the figure raise a hand and almost choked in terror when i saw a single

long pointed finger in a hissing voice whisper way la sico i screamed ripping my way through the front flap of my tent and tearing it around the campsite screaming at spear-fingered spear fingers she's come to eat my liver please god don't let her eat my liver i expected the rest of the camp to start screaming too to burst out of the tents and terror to maybe just stay inside them in the hopes that spearfinger might pass over them and don't get me wrong there were a couple of other cries of fear that accompanied my own

but the sound that made me slow to a stop and peer around in confusion was the sound of laughter when i looked i saw another one of the scouts this kid named devin and he was just about bent over in hysterics with a long slender twig tied to one finger i must have been boiling with rage at that point but devin just thought that that was extra funny waving the long wooden twig at me and making that same hissing sound again before bursting into laughter i swear that was probably the most scared and embarrassed i

ever was during my entire childhood and all because that little idiot devin decided to pull a prank on me ever since then i've never been able to hear the word smoky mountains without remembering that boy scout camping trip even if it does make me kind of smile these days but what doesn't make me smile is seeing liver in the deli section of a grocery store because all i think about sometimes is the idea of spearfinger hushing a child to sleep stroking their hair singing them a little lullaby with the voice of their grandma or favorite

aunt all before ripping out their liver and feasting on it with their stony skinned lips ringed with dark fresh blood hey friends thanks for listening click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations if you've got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit r let's read official and give and receive feedback from the community and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video and join a live stream to catch an invite to my discord and if you want to support me even more grab early access to all future

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