My name is John Gray. I was once Chief Evidence Analyst with the Oregon State Police.

A half hour passed sunset on September 7th of 2013, a volunteer at the Visitor's Center inside the

Qualls Nature Education Park on the edge of the Columbia River Gorge in Northern Oregon,

locked the building and prepared to go home for the night. She was Elaine Mossworth age 60.

As she closed the door, she scanned the small parking lot and she was surprised to see another vehicle.

Beside her own, it was a dark red SUV. She knew it belonged to a man who came to the park often

on late afternoons to catch the sunset from the main overlook. But now it was dark and she

wasn't permitted to leave the grounds unless they were empty of visitors. Before she put in a call

to the part-time security guard, she decided she would take a quick walk to the overlook

to see if the man, his name escaped her, was there and just straggling longer than he ever had before.

Elaine went back into the building and got a flashlight. She'd have to walk a few hundred feet

down Blue Robin Trail to the overlook and suddenly she felt a heightened awareness of her

solitude on the park's heavily-wooded 30-acre grounds. They fed the gorge and the forest around her

through five different trail systems. The overlook was absolutely as far as she was willing to go

before calling the guard. She started down the unlit path into the woods a little nervously.

A woman camper had been murdered not three miles from this spot, six years before.

Actually the very same woman who had overseen the renovation of the visitor center in 2004.

The path wound toward a steadily trickling small stream. Elaine could hear it but she couldn't see it.

When she turned around she saw that even the small aura of light from the parking lot had been

completely blotted out by the trees. The overlook bordered a dramatic drop into a wide tree-choked valley.

The horizon was a dark purple and stars were now gleaming through very tiny gaps in the clouds.

Several benches rained the overlooks edge and Elaine noticed a form sitting on one of them.

...