National Park After Dark - Missing, Murdered, Massacred: Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

When a family of four vanishes from their campsite in Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, what ensues is one of Oregon state’s largest search and rescue efforts. The discovery of the family leaves more questions than answers and remains one of the Pacific Northwest's longest standing cold cases.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Miracle Made: Use our link and code NPAD to save over 40% and get 3 free towels.Lume Deodorant:  new customers GET $5 OFF a Lume Starter Pack with code NPAD.MILL: Use our link to secure your MILL membershipFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally, breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs.

You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night And you've had enough of shopping from your couch Done hoping it looks anything like the picture When you tear open that envelope It's time for a little in-person spring treat It's time for a trip to Ross

Work your magic There are some places we never expect anything bad to happen Lighthearted family vacation spots are one of them A visit to the amusement park A hot summer afternoon spent in the air conditioning of an aquarium or an evening at the local fair. Worst case scenario, families leave with sticky cotton candy fingers,

a newfound obsession with jellyfish, or sore abs from the belly laughs resulting from a full night of riding roller coasters. Yet we know those aren't worst case, because in all of these circumstances, we have heard of tragedy striking. Danger can lurk in the shadows, find concealment in crowds, hide in plain sight, and strike when we least expect. it. When we have our guards down, when we feel safe and comfortable, during times we are having the time of our lives, unaware that it may very well be the end of it. Welcome to National Park

After Dark. What an ominous intro. It's an ominous story. It's a rough one. We haven't dabbled in true crime in a little bit. And I think we're all due for a true crime story, but it doesn't make it any easier because this one's really, really bad. So just here's your warning. Heads up. This episode is going to contain graphic content, including discussions of sexual assault, child harm, and of course, murder. And your eyes are the size of a dinner place. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. We're here for a, we're listed as true crime. That's our genre of this podcast. So we might as well show up, I guess. So here we are. Here we are. So we're going to be actually not in a national park today. We're going to be in a national forest. Okay. Whereabouts?

We're going to be in Oregon. I love Oregon. I would love to spend more time there. I really enjoyed it when I did go. You and Al weren't there for long, were you? No, we were there for like three or four days. Like when you came out to see Ian and I, right? Yeah. Yeah. When we drove down, we were driving cross-country, we visit you guys. And then we came down and we visit one of Al's friends and we stayed the night, Or we stayed a couple nights with him and then we stayed in, God, I can't even think of the town. It's in central. In Oregon? Yeah, it's in central Oregon.

It's a big town. I should know the name of it, but it's Bend. Yep. Yep. We stayed in Bend. And then we ventured and we ended up driving straight through, went to Utah and continued our trip from there. Yeah, it's been quite a while since I've been in Oregon. But this story takes place in an area that I've been through.

So it was really interesting, especially hearing the details and the descriptions of the places. And we'll get into that. But we're going to start in April of 1975. In April of 1975, 24-year-old Marvin Proctor and 25-year-old Roger Allen West had the gold bug. The Forest Grove Oregon residents heard that there was a lot of gold to be found in Oregon, apparently overlooked in the previous centuries gold rush. Along with the thrill of looking and hopefully finding this, precious metal, they were hoping to strike it rich.

Marvin was hoping to cash in and afford a new car. And the friends had grown up together and found work in a variety of different jobs, odd jobs, temporary seasonal jobs, in order to pay for their hobby of prospecting. And aside from spending a brief couple of months in Colorado the previous year, his last extended vacation was too long ago. And he was excited to get out into the forest. Their destination was the Rogue River Sisku National Forest, located in southwestern Oregon and stretching into northern California,

the Rogue River Sisku National Forest extends from the Cascade Mountain Range, west into the Sisku Mountains, and even includes several portions of the coastal range, reaching nearly right into the Pacific Ocean. So this is a really, really beautiful national forest. It covers seven counties and two states and is home to eight different designated wilderness areas in six wild and scenic rivers.

This national forest is certainly a Pacific, Northwest Wonderland. It has kind of like everything that the Pacific Northwest offers as far as landscapes and things like that. It's like you want to see it all. Just come right here. The National Forest we know it as today was first two separately designated ones. The Rogue River National Forest was first known as the crater National Forest and was established by the man who established a lot of things here in the country, President Roosevelt back in 1908. The Sisku Forest Reserve was established by the same guy, three years earlier in 1905. And their names are really cool because they commemorate different aspects of indigenous peoples of the area. So the Rogue River honors the Talkema tribe,

whose defense of their homeland led early European colonists to nickname them the rogues. And Sisku is a Cree word for bobtailed horse. So it kind of commemorates and honors the indigenous peoples of the area. Very cool. And those two different designated forests combined in 2000. and are known for their two distinct geological provinces, so the Cascade Range and the Clameth and Sisku Mountains. Covering nearly 1.8 million acres, the landscape varies from open oak woodlands, coastal rainforest, deep canyons, lush meadows, snow-capped volcanic volcanic peaks, dense conifer forests, and dramatic rocky ridgetops. Given its varied landscape, it's home to hundreds of species of plant and animal life, some prevalent and others pretty elusive, so everything from, Elk, Pacific Fishers, Cougars, Black Bears, wolves, sturgeon, and the Mountain King Snake. So there's a lot going on in this national forest. And people come here to camp, hike, river raft, horseback ride,

Wildlife Watch, and Mountain Bike, as there are endless opportunities for exploration from the sea coast to the thick forests. And when I was looking up the location, because obviously, you know, geographically, when hearing it described, you can kind of pinpoint on a map mentally, I wanted to see, like, based on the route that Ian and I did on our road trip, if we even, like, went by it or near it. And we drove right back by it and probably given its size through it at times because the National Forest was on our way from a campsite at Mount Shasta to our next destination of Crater Lake. So you were like, right, you were right there. Technically. Technically.

Yeah, we didn't stay in it. But anyways, there's also a national monument that is a direct neighbor to this national. forest and it's also absolutely stunning and that was the area of one of the coolest campsites we had of our whole trip and that national monument is called the cascade Siskiu national monument and it's near crater lake and it's god i'm getting like not fomo because i did it nostalgic nostalgia yeah that's it this episode is brought to you by prime obsession is in session and this summer prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis,

Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. So back to Marvin and Allen. They packed up and headed south towards the Rogue River, about a five-hour drive south from where they lived in the suburbs of Portland. Finding the waters a little too high for panning, they stopped at a local grocery store and learned of another location to try out. Talking to the locals,

they heard nearby Applegate County had a lot of gold, and they packed up and headed right over there. They set up camp at Sturgis Campground near Carberry Creek and settled in to bed and called it a night. But they rose super early the next day with the sun, excited to get out there.

The day was April 12th, And they spent most of that day panning for gold, again, with not a ton of luck, but enough to keep the gold bug going. Because when they were panning for gold, there were some gold flakes glimmering in their dishes. And they had to, they were really small. They had to pluck them out with tweezers. They weren't like huge nuggets or anything. But it was enough to catch their eye and keep the momentum going. They saw the gold.

It was what they needed their little adrenaline rush of like, oh, my gosh. We have something. It's here. Yeah. invigorated and recalling that bigger nuggets are sometimes found in the roots of washed out trees and gullies, they chose to ditch the creek for another location. Making their way up separate gullies, they picked their way along over down trees and scrambled over loose earth. Alan took his time picking up and examining various rocks because he remembered that sometimes quartz concealed gold in the veins of the rock.

Eyes completely focused on the rocks, laser focused on his task. He tripped over a log. he wasn't looking where he was going. And he landed full force on the ground, flat on his stomach, didn't even catch himself. And he went to push himself up off of the ground to recover. And as he was doing that, his eyes locked eyes with someone else or what remained of them. It was a human skull looking directly at him. Oh, that's terrifying.

Yeah, he was frantic, totally freaked out. And he alerted Marvin and the two returned back to the campground to see. seek out authorities to let them know what was going on. Fortunately, a sheriff's deputy's vehicle was pretty nearby right on Carberry Creek Road. So within minutes, authorities were aware of this discovery. So this was just a skeleton? Like, it was a skull that he found. Okay. And he, they didn't stick around to investigate further. I wouldn't either. I would run. I just picture when you see something like that in your dreams where you're like running, but you're not going anywhere. I feel like I'd try and run as fast as I could away and it would be like the slowest run of my entire life. I get that not really

that much with running but with trying to call out for help or scream and it always comes out as a really, really soft like whisper. Yeah. I get, I don't get the running one. I get in my dreams, I try to dial 911 and I always dial the wrong number and in my dream I'm tiling it over and over it'll be like 912, 914, 811. Like it's any number it's. It's. Any number it's. Except for 911. Yeah, these are stress streams. Oh, yeah. Anxiety.

Anxiety for sure. Comes out at night. So authorities were alerted, where there's discovery right away, and it turns out that the pair finding the human skull led to the subsequent discovery of additional human remains. And that was something that state and local police, explorer scouts, the United States Forest Service, the Oregon National Guard, and hundreds of volunteers had failed to do for the previous seven months. And that was the attempt to locate the whereabouts of the Cowden family. So this is going to be a story about the murder of an entire family. That they just came across

the remains of. Yes. Heavy. So getting into the Cowden family and who they were, the Cowden family was a young one, comprised of 28-year-old Richard, his wife, 22-year-old Belinda, their two children, five-year-old David, whom Belinda had with her previous husband, and five-month-old. Melissa and their young Basset Hound droopy. So that's their family unit. The family lived in White City, Oregon near Medford, where Richard worked as a logging truck driver for Steve Wilson logging, and Belinda worked as a stay-at-home mom. Labor Day weekend of 1974 approached, and while many Americans prepared to kick their feet up for the welcome, break, and work, Richard was not planning to be among them. He was planning to get a home project completed,

consisting of hauling a lot of loads of gravel for his driveway. But unexpectedly, the gravel truck that he was going to be using for the job broke down. And with no hope of getting it repaired over the holiday weekend, Richard and Belinda jumped on the opportunity to do one of their favorite things, and that was to go camping. Packing up for a last-minute-long weekend, the couple loaded their Ford pickup and headed into the mountains. They arrived on August 30th and chose a site near Carberry Creek in Copper, Oregon,

a place that they actually visited many times before, down to the exact campsite that they were heading to. So this was a favorite for the couple and their young family. And it's important to know, and this will come back a little later, but Copper, the town of Copper, no longer exists today. It was flooded to create the Applegate Lake in 1980. It was a super small town. We've heard of this before. I actually touched on this in the Mount St. Helens episode as well, because Harry Truman, where he grew up in Washington, same thing. thing, super small town, and it was flooded when a dam was created. So it's underneath the

reservoir now. Yeah. There's a, around the area I'm in, they have something similar to that too. It's interesting to see how many, if you look around you, how many towns have been flooded in the wake of making dams for resources for people. That's right. But back at this time in the mid-1970s, Belinda's mother, Ruth, lived in this town. And she actually lived less than a mile. And she actually lived less than a mile away from the Cowden's chosen campsite. And they had made plans to join Belinda's mother for dinner on their last night of the weekend, which would have been Sunday, September 1st, before heading home. They have a great weekend. There was nothing that anyone noticed was awry over the weekend. It was pretty radio silent, so it's expected that everything was fine. Sunday, the first comes around,

so the end of their camping trip. And around 9 a.m., Richard took his son, David, the five-year-old, on a walk to the Copper General's store. And Ruth, Belinda's mother, owned and managed the store, and she was there working when Richard came in with David, and they talked, and Richard purchased a quart of milk before heading back to the campsite, and that would be the last sighting of them alive. As the evening approached with no sign or word from her daughter and the rest of the family, Ruth's concern grew. She called up a friend named Guy Walkins to join her to their campsite to see why they had not arrived to her home for dinner yet. And as they approached the campsite, Richards Ford pickup truck was in view, parked right next to their tent. Stepping into the campsite, Ruth called out for them but received no answer. And she began poking around,

noting that the family's clothes were neatly folded in the tent. Melissa's diaper bag was there, along with Richard's shoes and all of their belongings, as far as she could tell. There was fishing poles leaning up against a nearby tree. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, not even the food, or the place settings that were set out on the table, like in preparation for a meal. The milk jug that Richard had purchased earlier that morning was on the picnic table. In fact, even the keys to the truck, Belinda's purse, Richard's wallet still containing money, and his expensive gold wrist watch were all still there. Spooky and everything's in place like people should be there and no one's there. Right. And the only thing that caught her eye as kind of being odd or off right off the bat,

other than the family's obvious absence from the campsite was one of Belinda's blouses. It was on the cot inside the tent and ripped into. There was no stains, no blood or anything, but it was almost ripped clean in half. And the only thing apparently missing out of their entire campsite and their belongings was their swimsuits. So thinking that they had gone off swimming, Ruth and Guy hung around the camp hoping to intercept them when they arrived back. Maybe they got caught up with something, lost track of time, was just having a good day. So she was kind of giving the benefit of the doubt and they hung around for a little while. But as minutes ticked on and melted into an hour, the sun was starting to set and the sinking feeling that something was really off was getting bigger and bigger.

Ruth and Guy left the site and made the short drive into town and made calls to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the Oregon State Police. They responded quickly and arrived to the campsite to meet Ruth, who explained her last encounter with Richard and David, earlier that morning. And then the responding officers took to the trails and the surrounding logging roads on foot to search, but came up with nothing. With night quickly falling, they discontinued their efforts for the night and resumed the following morning. That next morning, droopy showed up. The Basset hound puppy was found scratching and whimpering at the front door of the general store. Relieved to see someone from her missing family, Ruth scooped up the pup and alerted the police to this new development. Obviously, it's impossible to know.

where droopy had been, what, or if anything, he had seen. But by speaking to nearby campers and hikers, officers were able to construct a loose timeline of the last 24 hours of this dog's activity. That's kind of funny how much you can just ask people, have you seen a dog? And people can be like, at 1115 a.m., I hugged a cute little Bassett puppy. And they're like, that's kind of what happened. Yeah. And in the 70s, maybe it's a little different, like, people like, niche laws aren't really, weren't really as big of a thing. It was a little more lax. But you're going to remember seeing a puppy on its own.

According to two separate witnesses, around 2.30 p.m. the previous day, and roughly four miles from the Cowding campsite, Droopy was spotted wandering alone. And then, approximately four hours later, so around 6.30 in the evening, he was seen alone again, this time, even a bit further away from that original siting location. So a little later in the day, a little farther away from the campsite location. Between the early evening and that morning, at some point in time, he managed to find his way back to the general store. Unsure what happened before, in between, etc. The search quickly became one of the largest in Oregon state history.

The search grid widened to about 25 miles in every direction from the Cowden campsite. Searchers from various offices and in the form of volunteers flooded the area. geologists were enlisted to help navigate abandoned mine shafts, bloodhounds were brought in in an attempt to track down the family scent, and planes with specially equipped infrared technology combed and crisscrossed the area, hoping to detect some heat signatures that they could connect with the family. And while it was a really good thought and certainly was way more helpful than not having that tool at all, the towering trees, the redwood cedars and ponderosa pines,

made it really difficult to get a clear view of the. the ground underneath because this national forest is thick. She thick. The ICC. Five days after the family was last seen on September 6th, Oregon State Police released a statement that noted they were working on leads that indicated the family was no longer near the campsite. And then the following day, an Oregon State Police sergeant spoke to reporters for the Capitol Journal and said in part, quote, it's getting to look really strange.

This is about the strangest thing I've ever seen. It's not logical that a couple like that would take off with two young kids and leave all of their belongings. If the National Guard doesn't find anything, the only thing we can assume is that they were abducted. So this statement was a big shift in the investigation and the overall tone of the situation. Because up into this point, the public and likely members of the Cowden family themselves were thinking that this was a case of a family getting lost in the woods. But as time went on, it was becoming difficult to... to deny that something more sinister was at play, especially with the knowledge that the Cowden family knew this area pretty well. They've been here multiple times before.

Getting lost wasn't very realistic. Right. The family lives in close proximity. And I would imagine, I mean, I don't have children, but I have been in the vicinity of children. And going that far away to get turned around or lost with a five-year-old and a five-year-old. five month old. It doesn't seem like they would be wandering too far away from trails and you know what I mean. No, especially like whether you're breastfeeding or you're or you are using formula, you are going to need to like be pumping or, you know, there's just a lot that goes into the care of a five month old. You're not going to be

venturing with it unless, especially with all your gear and all your stuff behind. Your diaper bag is gone. Your diaper isn't gone. It's left behind when you have a five month old. That's. not realistic. Right. Mm-hmm. An early theory that the family simply picked up and abandoned their life was quickly dismissed. Yeah. The family had just redecorated David's room, something that he was super stoked to do for quite a while before this trip. So people kind of pointed to that, like, why would they put in all that effort to do this and then just abandon their life? And why would they leave the puppy behind? Yeah. Why would they do that? They wouldn't do that. They have a lovely family. Investigation into their three-bedroom white city home revealed nothing was out of place and nothing indicated that they didn't have plans for turning.

There was food in the pantry, in the refrigerator, everything, like they didn't take anything. It was just all left like they were about to come right back. A second theory that popped up pretty early on kidnapping for ransom was again quickly kind of tossed to this side. Well, no one's come forward asking for money. Right. And Ruth informed investigators that the young family had a small amount of debt but nothing out of the norm for a typical family. They didn't live lavishly and had no major outstanding financial debts or unpaid debts to anyone personally who may have lent them money and were looking to get it back in some wild way. Lead investigators started leaning more into the idea that someone had taken the family and driven them to a secondary location for the pure reason that there's literally no trace of all four of these people.

This is the biggest search and rescue operation up until this point in state history. There's so many boots on the ground and there's nothing. It just seems very odd. Despite the state and local police, United States Forest Service, and the Oregon National Guard already being involved, local investigators contemplated requesting the FBI for assistance in the case, but instead decided to wait on that request as there was really no concrete proof of a kidnapping or a transfer across state lines. So it's super frustrating, but at the same time, I mean, you got to present some concrete evidence

to get the FBI involved. Yeah. But the local community felt very differently and petitioned the FBI to come in and help. They're like, okay, well, there's nothing concrete. They're doing everything they can and they're not finding anything. They need other help. Yeah, back up here. Unfortunately, with no evidence indicating a federal crime, the FBI could mirror.

merely weigh in, only if the local authorities requested that assistance, which they ultimately did not decide to do. Search efforts were called off on September 7th, and as the weeks rolled into months, the case turned cold. Investigators followed up with hundreds of tips, various different leads, interviewed everyone in the campground vicinity that they could find, countless nearby homeowners, family members, and friends of the family. They even followed up on visions presented by psychics who had called in claiming to know what happened to the Cowdens. They were doing everything that they could. And while law enforcement worked on the case, the family did what they could on their end, offering a thousand dollar reward for information leading to the location of, if alive,

or information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person's responsible for their disappearance. Referring to the Cowden family, of course. And this reward grew over time, partially in thanks to the result of public donations from the community. So people are putting in their own money. They're rallying together to try and figure out what happened to this family. And that's devastating to have an entire family go missing. You just, you know in your heart that something really bad has happened. And it feels like that the town is rallying around that in any way that they can to try and either help in any way they can or solve this in any way that they can. Right. And you just feel so helpless. But it's so frustrating because it's like, all right, four people didn't just get sucked up into

this guy. Yeah. Like, I'm all for aliens and like I love a UFO thing. But this isn't it. This is, this isn't it. And it's so kind of like you want to pull your hair out. And I'm sure everyone involved on the law enforcement side felt very similarly. Nearly a month into the vanishing of the family, authorities were looking into their first suspect. 26 year old, James Done had been accused of stabbing to death a young man in Northern California the same day that the Cowdens went missing. It was also believed that he had. was responsible for murdering a second man in Northern California the next day. And while the crimes were different in nature, authorities looked into the lead before dismissing it. But James had no means

of transportation, wasn't in the state of Oregon, and would have been unable to commit all three of the crimes. So the killing of those two separate individuals and the abduction of an entire family, given the time frame. I was going to say, that seems a little far-fetched. How far is this drive? It's actually not, so if you look up Carberry Creek, Oregon right now on the map, it's pretty much on the border of Northern California. Okay. That's how southern this national forest is in relation to the state of Oregon. But still, this guy didn't have a mode of transportation. How was one person with a knife, because it says he stabbed people to death with a knife overpower for two adults.

I mean, obviously. Who are protecting their children. Right. Exactly. It's not. That seems a little far, not impossible, but it seems very far-fetched. And, yeah, to get back and forth from Northern California to Oregon. Yeah. To commit two separate crimes and to, and add in a third. Yeah, it seems, it seems a little far-fetched. Yeah, so he was guilty, just not of the Cowden, anything related to the Cowden family.

Once again, Trail goes cold. In December, Richard's father, Robert, died by suicide. apparently largely in part to his son's disappearance and the lack of headway being made in their case. Fall gave way to winter, which turned into spring, with little to no developments in the case. That is, until seven months later when Marvin, Proctor, and Alan West decided to go searching for gold. The same day the skull was discovered, it was sent off for analysis and dental records confirmed it to be that of Richard Cowden's. The scene was immediately secured and processed, and actually, Alan and Marvin stuck around and helped process the scene, like look for any evidence, which seems wild because it's like these just two guys that are just out there. You wouldn't be like,

yeah, come help us. Yeah, come help us search. Look for evidence. Yeah, it's a different time. But either way, they were involved for a little while, but then they were like, this is too much. It's freaking me out, honestly, and we got to get out of here. So they moved on and they were paid some of that reward money as well. What came next provided some answers to what happened to the Cowdens. Not far from where the skull was recovered, it appeared that Richard had been tied to a tree. However, the state of decomposition, exposure to the elements, and scavenging animals rendered the cause of death impossible to determine. He's been out exposed to elements for seven months. And although this area doesn't historically get a lot of snow, it's super rainy and wet.

And the fluctuation and temperature and obviously the time going on, just it was impossible to determine what he died of. There was no obvious bullet holes, I will say, in his skull or anything like that. And they do say he was tied to a tree based off of rope and how some of his remains were still positioned. About 100 feet from his remains were those of the rest of his family, stuffed into a small cave in a nearby hillside, the entrance of which was purposefully concealed with large rocks and a scattering of brush. The state medical examiner conducted autopsies on all of the remains and confirmed what authorities suspected based upon the initial discovery of the remains, basically by just looking at them. Belinda and David,

the five-year-old, had both died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head that came from a 22-caliber rifle, and Melissa, the five-month-old baby, was likely beaten to death due to the massive blunt-force trauma she suffered to her head. Holy shit. That's horrendous. It's brutal. For a baby? Like, come on. The location of the cave baffled everyone involved in this case. It was located about six miles from the campsite, well within the search area. And in fact, it had been searched. Local volunteers came forward to state that they had climbed that exact hillside and investigated inside of that small cave, which at the time had no debris blocking its entrance

and was empty. To confirm this, investigators requested one of the volunteers bring them to the location to ensure that it was the same spot. So they never told these volunteers, like this is where we found them, like exactly. They wanted to make sure, like, hey, can you bring us to this area and show us everywhere where you looked in? And the cave was part of that.

So they brought him right to the spot, said, yep, I was here. There was nothing blocking the entrance. Nothing was in here. So that really validated that, okay, that something is up here. Also, the entrance was off the beaten path and pretty difficult to locate. In fact, government dispatch search members

were never even aware it was there. It was the local volunteers that searched that area. So he was able to find that local volunteer was able to find it without prompt or issue, kind of insinuating that, okay, well, maybe the person who is responsible for this is a local because they know this area and know that this cape was here.

Very good point. So I'm curious and you're probably going to go into this. Did they find that this family was killed in this location and it just hadn't happened yet with search parties, or do they believe that they were moved to this location? That's a good question. We'll get right to it. Okay. Because that is the main question that was kind of first on everybody's minds. In the days following the discovery of the remains, Oregon State Police sealed off the cave in the surrounding areas to comb for evidence. All that was recovered was a single Marlin manufactured 22 rifle bullet. This discovery propelled the case from a missing

person case into a full-blown homicide investigation, obviously, between knowing that this family was murdered. They were all murdered to, there's bullets casings here, so this has completely changed the game. And while they had the make and the caliber from the potential murder weapon, there were still more hurdles to overcome, and these answers that they got were just spurring new questions. If the cave was truly inspected during the search, was the family taken, killed elsewhere, and then dumped there, if they weren't taken away, were they held there for a period of time, or were they killed immediately? Based off of the location of the cave, like I said before, police were almost certain that the killer or killers knew the area well, and most likely used a

vehicle. For an entire family to be marched six miles away from their original campsite on foot, without being seen by anyone else, seemed extremely unlikely. Plus, Carberry Creek Road was located less than a quarter of a mile from the entrance of this little cave. And there's only one, so there was only one bullet found, casing found, on the floor of that cave. And they said that both Belinda and David were killed with multiple gunshot wounds or sustained multiple gunshot wounds. Which points to that maybe this happened in another location. Or they tried to clean up after themselves and missed one. It's so hard to say, especially because this is now seven months later.

This isn't like there's other evidence around that could indicate. And again, I didn't read anything about it, but my first thought would be it's clearly not obvious because there's no other material in there indicating that the crime occurred there. Like, okay, two people died by multiple gunshot wounds to the head. I would imagine there would be blood. Blood, brain matter, some sort of other substance that would show that they were killed in that location versus being just. Yeah. Moved there. But it's also weird that Richard was tied to a tree.

Like that to me indicates he was alive when he was tied there. Like why would they? Yeah. Because why would you have to tie someone up that was not alive? Also, I'm curious too because there's no obvious indications of you said any gunshot wounds to him. Mm-hmm. So there's that. And there's a lot.

But I agree with you where you're talking about in the cave that there would be some other indications going on. And as we've seen, and I'm not a friend, I'm not into forensics or anything, but we've seen a lot in caves that they have an environment where things are preserved a little bit better. And I imagine cleaning a cave would be extremely difficult, especially when you're talking about blood. So the fact that there's nothing at all there, for me, it sounds like it probably happened somewhere else. Yeah. And there's also the other thing, though, that it could quite possibly have been there, but this is 1975. Oh, right. So, of course, they're doing everything they can, but it's just not what we're used to

if this was to have happened today. Okay. But again, it's so hard. We read about it a lot about how crime scenes out in nature are so difficult to process because there's so many different factors. This isn't someone's living room. There's temperature and natural elements, wind and sun and animals and, you know, weather. It's, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot more. A young family from L.A. who had been hiking in the area was questioned by police after they came forward with information that provided the first new development in this case in months. Apparently, the L.A. family was out walking around 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 1st, the day that the Cowdens went missing, and noticed a woman sitting in a pickup truck on the side of Carbury Creek Road, stating, quote,

they acted like they were waiting for us to leave and frankly they made us nervous so we moved on. And it was just one woman that they saw? There was a woman in the truck but they said there was a group of people in there. Okay. So, but they specifically noticed the woman, but there were more people there. Mm-hmm. The surviving members of the Cowden family were able to hold funeral services for Richard, Belinda, David, and Melissa in April of 1975 and the family was laid to rest in the Eagle Point National cemetery in Eagle Point, Oregon. By that summer, the lead brought forward by that LA family

kind of fizzled to nothing. There was nowhere to go with that information. Were they ever shown a photo of? I'm not sure. I just know that nothing ever came of it. Okay. Because that would be huge. I mean, if they could identify her in the vehicle. I would imagine, yes. Yeah. Like, have you seen these people? Have you seen this family? Was this the woman you saw in the truck? Right. Yeah. And at this point, years go by. And it's 1978, and construction broke ground to construct the Applegate Reservoir Dam, which would result in the eventual flooding of the town of copper, the Carberry Creek Campground, and the cave, which now lays at the bottom of Applegate Lake. Two years later, in 1980, Oregon State Police stepped forward to announce they had a person of interest in the case,

and his name was Dway Little, and he was 31 years old. That's a big step if police. announce that they have a suspicion of someone, that means that they have a really big reason. This isn't just like a suspect, like the first guy we talked about. This is an actual person of interest. So this is a big development, especially after so many years have gone by with little to nothing. By the time the police named Dwayne as a person of interest, he was already facing charges. In 1980, he was 31 years old. But in November of 1964, he was just 15. It was then that he encountered Orla Phipps, a 16-year-old girl from Springfield, Oregon, and she was riding her horse home from school alone when Dwayne attacked her.

He raped and stabbed Orla to death in the woods right next to her home. As a 15-year-old? Yes. He was later arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for that crime when he was 17 years old. In accordance to Oregon state law, he was eligible for parole after serving just 10 years, and it was granted. That's, there's so many feelings towards that when you murder someone and you get let out. Granted, he was a child when it happened, but oh, my. Well, in that vicious of a way as well, it wasn't like an accident.

It wasn't, not that murdering someone is ever an accident by definition, but you know what I mean. Like, it was just really aggressive and there's cause for concern there. and I don't think that... Was dressed appropriately? Yeah. Well, and it gets worse. So he was released in May of 1974 just a few months

before the Cowdens disappeared and he was sent back to prison a year later after violating his parole by possessing a firearm. And not just any firearm. According to his girlfriend, she told investigators

that she had witnessed Dwayne with a 22-caliber hunting rifle during Christmas of 1974. And that's the same gun that was used with the Cowden family. family. Yes. So it's thanks to her that he was sent back to prison. And originally when she was informing the police about the rifle, she didn't think that he had any connection with the Cowdens. She just wanted to make sure that he was following the conditions of his parole. Oh, yeah, because she

wasn't thinking that. It's just like, he's allowed to have this, right? She was like, hey, just so you know, he has a gun. And like, that's not chill with the parole. So he just went right back to prison for that violation. So he sent back to prison, but he was paroled again in the spring of 1977, and as a shock to probably no one three years later, he committed another horrific crime. He sexually assaulted a pregnant woman named Margie Hunter whose car had broken down near Portland, and after the sexual assault, he attempted to beat her to death, but she lived and she pressed charges against him. Good for her. In 1980, Dwayne was charged and convicted of the attempted homicide and finally sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and his opportunity for additional paroles were officially revoked.

So that was it. Thank you. He's finally. Finally. He's in. He's not coming out. Having a 22 caliber rifle and being a convicted murderer doesn't already look great, but it wasn't enough to tie him to the murders.

There had to be something additional to get him to a person of interest status. Well, did they have his gun? I don't know. I'm sure they did. But again, technology, I mean, I could also be totally butchering this, but technology for matching the exact weapon with the exact bullet, I don't know. I would love to talk to someone in forensics on this who could give us the answers to all of these questions. I could have if I followed a different life path and went to school for forensics like I almost did, I could have had a different conversation with you, but I'm just, I'm not sure. So I would love to, if anyone's listening and you're in forensics and know the answer to all of these questions.

we'd love to pick your brain because it's interesting, it's horrific, but it's interesting to see how people solve cases and crimes and what they link to because the first thing I think of, and maybe it's because I've watched too many movies, is that if you have the shell casing, then you can link the gun. And if the gun was confiscated from him because he went to prison, maybe they still have it in a holding area somewhere. I just feel like I solved it. That would have been an avenue that. Cassie just cracked the case. I just solved it. hire me. I just feel like that would have been something that was a no-brainer if that was available, if that technology was available to them at that time. They're already doing so much, like,

why would they not do that if that's something that could have been done? You see the ball dropped all the time on cases, though, where new eyes come in and they're like, hey, why don't we do this? And people are like, oh, we never, we were so enveloped in this part of the case. That wasn't even an option. And someone else comes in with new eyes. And I'm sure I'm not the new eyes. But You know, like, I just feel like it is possible to miss things when you're so enveloped in a certain aspect of the case. But sorry, that was just my, that was just my thought on the bullet. No, that's fine. Because I do totally agree with that 100%.

And that's why they do pull fresh eyes into things and reopen cases and have different teams work on things for that exact reason. I just think in this certain circumstance, it's like I would find it shocking if they didn't do that. Okay. And could have. Anyway, okay, where was I? Oh, yes. So the additional information to get him into that persons of interest status. Yes, yes.

And that information came into play when investigators uncovered that he had stayed the night just miles away from the Cowden family campground the night that they vanished, which was a time between his prison releases when he was on parole. Okay. Additionally, a local cabin owner near the town of Copper says that on September 2nd, so the night after, Duane and his parents stopped at his cabin and signed his guest book, which is bizarre. Wait, his parents signed it? Yeah, so his parents are involved now.

Maybe. Because he wasn't there to sign it? No, they were all there together. So on September 1st, investigators somehow tied him, pinned him to this location. He had stayed the night. He had been witnessed there, like at a gas station. People said, yes, 100%. I saw him in this area on this night.

And then the next night, people witnessed him, or this guy, witnessed him and his parents at a cabin nearby. And they all signed the guest book at this cabin too. Bro, so there's evidence that they were there now. Right. Like solid, like written. They wrote their damn names down. Like, hi, we're all here suspiciously. And just a reminder that the L.A. family who said they saw a truck parked on the side of Carbury Creek Road, the day that the Cowdens disappeared.

Remember when you're like, oh, were they shown photo? That truck also happened to match the exact description of the truck that Dwayne and his family were driving. Now on top of that, another couple step forward saying they saw that same truck. Now this time, this is very important, filled with people on the day that the family disappeared, halfway between the Cowden's campsite and the site that the bodies were eventually discovered. And the cherry on top, a Basset Hound puppy was running behind the truck. Okay, so there's no, that's it. That's the truck. Based on years of investigation, retired Oregon State Police Detective Richard Davis believes

this is likely what happened to the Cowden family. So now taking all of this evidence, all of this testimony, witnesses coming forward, and obviously eyewitness accounts are historically difficult to rely on for a lot of different reasons, but just based on all the information that was gathered, he thinks that this is what happened. Dwayne was passing through the area when he came across the family swimming in Carberry Creek. He then followed them back to their campsite where he then abducted them. He may or may not have held them against their will for a short period of time, but he murdered them all and enlisted the help of his family to stash the bodies on the hillside.

That is what the theory of Richard Davis, this retired Oregon State Police Detective, who was heavily involved in the case, believes happened. Obviously, it's hard to fill in the gaps and all the tiny details, but essentially he thinks that's what happened those days over Labor Day. Dwayne has remained uncooperative and refuses to speak of any details of any of the murders that he's been convicted or accused of, including the Cowden family disappearance and murders. However, Floyd Forsberg, one of Dwayne's previous cellmates, has claimed that Dwayne confessed to the Cowden murders directly to him in conversation.

But it's worth noting that Floyd isn't exactly a saint himself. He has a questionable character. He's been caught lying about things before. He's not the most reliable witness for that. Also, again, me watching too many movies, but I just think of if you are able to get someone convicted on something and lessen your own sentence. It might be motive to say that he confessed to these things

because then you can go to court and you can sit on trial and be like, yes, he told me this. This is what he told me, blah, blah, blah. And get yourself out and get him convicted. Right. Oh, what an awful story. Dwayne Little remains incarcerated in the Oregon State Prison, and despite the heap of circumstantial evidence connecting him to the Cowden Murders, he has never been officially charged, and the

case remains open and unsolved. And that's the story of the Cowden Murders. That is horrible. I hope that they're able to convict him and find, he sounds like a viable suspect, and to hear all these accounts that come forward and say that they saw that truck. with a whole family, with the dog chasing. I mean, it's all there. It's just proving it.

I know. I know. And I will say that obviously, Dwayne's parents have been thoroughly investigated, interrogated, questioned, you know, the whole nine yards. But they've never admitted to anything. And they're probably, I mean, I also don't know. But they're probably deceased by now, just given their age. I mean, Dwayne's still alive. But it's hard to fathom that you could get your parents to help you with the murder.

of an entire family. I know that my parents would do anything for me, but if I presented them an entire family that I had just murdered, I don't think that they would stand behind me and that and help me get away with that, especially if children were involved. Maybe, and maybe if I had killed a couple like creepy older adults that were criminals or something, my mom and my dad would be like, all right, we'll handle this. But if I showed up with a family and there was an infant and a child involved. There's just no way. I feel like that's such a hard thing to fathom that these parents could have assisted in hiding their bodies. I know. But the other thing I think of when you say that is this took place, allegedly, if we're going with this theory, that he's responsible. This took place

during his parole. In their mind, just playing devil's advocate, like, if you get caught for this, you're going away for life. Like, because this is before. You would either way. It doesn't matter if you're on parole. If you get caught murdering an entire family, it doesn't matter if you're on parole. You're going away forever. I understand that. But what I'm saying is like they wanted to do everything, maybe wanted to do everything in their power to avoid him getting caught for another crime or anything that would violate his parole again and get him sent back to prison because this is before he attacked the woman that survived. And he went back finally for life. Okay. And he so at this point, He had only murdered one person, only.

Only murdered one person. God. Right. I'm not a parent, but I imagine that if I had a child who turned into something like this, I would, I'd just put them away. You know, and I know that's really hard to say, but if I had a child that was murdering and sexually assaulting people, be like, I am so sorry. Please rehabilitate in a jail.

Keep them off the streets. They're dangerous to themselves and others. That's hard to say because I'm not a parent and I'm looking. at it from an outside perspective. And right. I know parents do whatever they can for their children, but there's just, there's some extremes that are very hard to. Well, there's got to be a line. Yeah. You know, there's got to be in, I mean, that's all going on the assumption that that is what happened, but it's hard to kind of like think of another alternative scenario. Like, this just matches so alarmingly well. I almost wonder if there was someone that we don't even know

about that was there. Like, uh, well, that's the thing. A prisonmate. Or, something because parents doing it's just unless I don't know his family maybe he has a criminal family maybe he gets his behavior because of things that his parents did to him as a child's I mean he started these things as a child and maybe that's a reflection of how he was raised and I don't know anything about his childhood so I'm making wild assumptions here but maybe his parents and his father were not good people either so who knows I don't know it's hard to fathom yes it's really hard to fathom and it's hard to wrap your mind around someone also just happening to be in the area. It's a total random act of violence. There's no rhyme or reason. You have no relation to these

people. Yeah. It's just like, oh, I happen to be in the area and you look like I can take advantage of the situation. Robbery obviously wasn't the motive. If he truly did follow them back to their campsite, yeah. There's money there. There's gold watches around there. There's purses lying around. Like, he didn't take anything. It was strictly because he wanted to harm someone. Stories like this just bother me to my core because it's so, it's so sad. It's just children lost their lives, a mother, a father. This whole family had their whole life ahead of them and it was stolen from them by someone who we officially don't actually know who did it. And we don't really know why either. They were just enjoying their life and on vacation. And it just people who do things like

this just make me very upset. Yeah, and it's also like an added layer, which it seems really weird, but like we've talked about this before. Like, we used to watch true crime, absorb true crime all the time, read, watch, discuss true crime cases all of the time. And we've kind of like stepped a little bit back from that a little bit just for different reasons. And it's just really difficult, like you said, it bothers you to your core. It's a lot to digest. It is. And researching it. It's like, of course we've heard, no matter how old or young someone is that is affected and a victim of a crime like this, it's awful. But when I'm reading like Richard and Belinda's ages and their children's ages, like I and we are at an age that like my family, my sister, my cousins, like my friends are that.

Those people. Are those people? Like they have young children. They just got married. They're in their 20s and 30s and it's like you can't help but kind of project that of like what if this happened to someone I knew or me or whatever and it's like that's what makes it even more difficult I think because you associate it to like oh my god like I could relate to this like in a weird way like an alternate dimension well it's a way to get to know the people who were victims to this because you do you put your family's faces on them because they are the same age they have have the same family dynamic, whatever it is, and you just see your own loved ones in these people, which it changes it. It's not just a story. It's personal when you hear it that way.

Yeah. So I know that people love a good true crime story and we get them requested a lot. And we will always... You're messed up. You're messed up. But we will... It's not a true crime podcast. I don't know where you ever got that idea. But yeah, so while we will obviously do these stories and it's something, it's kind of like our roots, I guess you could say. It's just we like to space them out because it is really heavy material. Despite like true crime being everywhere and everyone covering, at least in our worlds, like, I mean, there's some people, some friends that are like, I never listen to true crime. You guys are crazy. But in our world, like, our friends like it, we like it.

But yeah. So despite it seemingly everywhere, when you're the one like spending nights and out. hours researching the material and getting to know the people and not just like consuming it for 45 minutes and going on with your day. It gets a little hard. That's all I'm saying. What I love about our podcast is everything that we have brought it into be like we're survival stories. We're animal attacks. We're adventures. We're so much in the outdoors that is supposed to be inspiring and get you to want to be outdoors. And some of that is dark and some of that is scary. But the underlying of all of it. There's so much that's happening in the outdoors that is exciting to talk about. And what I

love that we've done with our podcast is. We've taken this true crime genre that is typically murder and attacks. And we've almost transformed it in our own little circle of being, it's not just an animal attack. It's a treasure hunt where people are breaking the laws in different places. It's a true crime organization that's running rampant. And I just did the hot springs episode. Or it's Like crime can be in so many different forms. Like your story that you did in effigy mounds where someone was taking the remains and holding them in their garage and that was a huge crime. I mean, crime can be in so many different genres.

So we have that. But we've also added this survival aspect, which I'm like hyping up our podcast right now to the people who are listening. I'm like, this is what we do. They're like, yeah, we know. We listen. It's like, got it. just like thinking about it and I'm just stoked on it and I like a lot of the content that we do do

and stories like this I think are just they're really hard to listen to and I just feel for the families and I guess that's my rant. The story's been over for like 10 minutes so everyone is still listening but yeah well it's important to say I think because it's something that we discuss personally like off air a lot and we always want to deliver content that people are most interested in, but we also have to walk the line of, you know, mental health and what we're most interested in, which is. Right. And I'm interested. I love history, okay? Like, give me a break. I like history. I try and make it dark because I love dark things. So it's just kind of like, without being rude, it's our podcast. And we will always do what, you know, is true to ourselves while also

taking into account what people most want to hear. I mean, we love suggestions. Suggestions are awesome. Yeah. We totally take them into account. And a lot of our episodes that we have done are based on suggestions. So I like getting them. But anyway, I feel like we've ranted. I'm going to get fresh. I'm going to get like, yeah, defensive of our shelves. So I don't get at you. I feel like we we've ranted for a while. So thank you everyone who's still listening and hanging around. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. We'll be back again. Next time, in the meantime, please enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone.

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