[Music] [Music] dennis lloyd martin was born on june 20th 1962 in tennessee usa he and his family lived in knoxville where dennis's father william or bill as he was more commonly known worked as an architect on father's day weekend the 14th of june 1969 just six days shy of turning seven years old dennis or denny as he was more commonly known to family and friends set off to the great smoky mountains national park alongside his father bill his grandfather clayed and his nine-year-old brother douglas for a hiking and camping trip a father's day tradition for
the family this was reportedly the first father's day outing that dennis had been on on the first day of their trip the martins hiked 10 miles from cades cove to russell field then travelled to spencefield the following day located near to the appalachian trail and decided to set up camp there according to various sources the family met up with more martins in spence field who were visiting from huntsville alabama however it's unconfirmed whether these martins from alabama were relatives or not as sources differ on this fact between 2 and 4 30 pm that day dennis
douglas and dr carter martin's two sons played a game of hide and seek in the park near to the appalachian trail both martin families watched their children huddle look over at them and split off into two parties going into the forest doug and carter's two sons and dennis on his own the adults knew that the children were going to jump up behind them to frighten them as a prank doug and the other two martin children appeared and scared bill clyde and carter however dennis didn't appear at first it was thought that because dennis was younger
he took a little longer to make the circle round however not even after five minutes his family grew concerned and the men split off to look for him dennis's father bill immediately called out for his son and ran along the appalachian trail for around a mile before returning back to camp thinking that perhaps dennis had been found but he was still missing bill then ran west for approximately two and a half miles along the trail to russell field before returning back to camp once again to no avail dennis's grandfather clyde went searching down anthony's creek
to cades cove before informing park rangers at 8 30 pm that dennis had vanished many people were hiking and fishing on the appalachian trail at the same time and they were more than willing to help the martins look for him however none of them had seen the six-year-old boy whilst the searches for dennis continued police questioned all of those who were in the area that night including hikers however all were ruled out of having any involvement in dennis's disappearance many volunteers helped park rangers search for dennis martin including college students boy scouts hunters on and
off duty firefighters and police members of 57 rescue squads from four states and military personnel including 60 green berets diverted from a training mission at the peak of the search over 1 400 people were involved scouring the forests and trails for dennis as darkness fell that first night thunder and lightning rumbled on through the night and two and a half inches of rain fell the bad weather continuing into the next day which led to some severe flooding as a result of such heavy and frequent rainfall dennis's footprints and any other important evidence would have been
washed away also the search the following day was hampered due to extremely heavy fog making the search effort incredibly difficult on the third day of searching a full grid search and drainage searches were conducted media arriving in swarms and more police coming along with bloodhounds that set out to find some clues however their efforts only met dead ends helicopters were also called in to help with the search clocking up a total of over 200 hours searching the area for dennis land earth and water were searched thoroughly by authorities and volunteers but there was still no
sign of dennis it was as if he had gone up in smoke on the fourth day something interesting was uncovered footprints were found near the west prong of the pigeon river the print the size of a child's oxford type shoe which dennis martin was last seen wearing the print found was described as quote once you on one shoe off and according to one of the trackers who had already scoured the area with the search party the shoe print matched dennis's however this was later ruled out as authorities believed the prince to belong to one of
the search party despite the fact that no children were involved as the weather continued to hamper the air and ground searches hopes of finding young dennis alive we're dwindling the search effort was eventually abandoned on june 29th and was officially closed in september of 1969 rather interesting new information came to light when a man named harold key claimed that on the afternoon dennis disappeared he and his family were near rowan's creek in the sea branch area around three miles away from where dennis had disappeared when he heard a quote enormous sickening scream a couple of
minutes passed and harold noticed a rough looking man moving cautiously in the woods near to where he had heard the scream the man going into a white vehicle and then driving off it is widely disputed whether the man was carrying a child with him or not harold did not actually report this odd incident until several days after upon returning home and learning of dennis martin's disappearance unfortunately harold couldn't recall exactly when this incident happened however the fbi concluded his claim did not have sufficient evidence to launch an investigation park rangers also concluded that dennis could
not have been in that area at the time due to the distance between the creek and where he was last seen in 1985 a ginseng hunter came forward and told authorities that he came across the skeletal remains of a child in tremont big hollow tennessee around nine miles from where the scream was heard and where the rugged man was seen the hunter had actually seen the bones years earlier but he hadn't come forward sooner because he thought he would have been blamed for dennis's death and that he would also be prosecuted for hunting ginseng illegally
law enforcement went to the spot the hunter indicated but unfortunately they found nothing of significance the unsuccessful search for dennis martin led to the national park service to review and amend its policies on searching for missing people the fact that so many people were involved meant that potentially valuable clues were lost three theories have been put forward as to what possibly happened to dennis martin that day in the summer of 1969 the first is that during the night he became lost and perished from the second is that he was attacked by a bear bears would
normally not attack humans however at the time dennis vanished food was scarce in the spencefield area rangers having come across a very thin bear in a boar trap baited with corn around two weeks beforehand bears don't normally eat food such as corn but they were desperate and would likely eat anything they could find the third is that dennis was abducted and taken out of the park by someone a theory supported by his father bill despite extensive investigations what truly happened to dennis martin that day remains a mystery he was six years old at the time
he disappeared and was of caucasian descent approximately four feet to four feet one inches tall and weighing approximately 55 pounds dennis has dark brown wavy hair and brown eyes with long thick eyelashes he was missing one of his upper front teeth at the time on the day he disappeared dennis was wearing a red t-shirt a pair of dark green hiking shorts a pair of white socks and black low-cut oxford shoes with a simple heel it should also be noted that dennis was a special education student at the time of his disappearance his mental age falling
behind by around about six months he is described as a husky healthy boy who had hiking and camping experience and wasn't particularly fearful despite being a rather quiet boy he would however respond to anyone who called out for him by name including strangers those with any information regarding this case are urged to contact the great smoky mountain police department on eight six five four three six one two three zero you
