Park Predators - The Duo

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Two friends go camping in a California national forest, but only one returns alive. A wildfire, confusing accounts, and buried evidence nearly stand between authorities and the truth…but despite a young man’s best efforts to conceal his actions, justice prevails. View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-duo Did you know you can listen to Park Predators ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies. Park Predators is an Audiochuck production.  Connect with us on social media: Instagram: @parkpredators | @audiochuck Twitter: @ParkPredators | @audiochuck Facebook: /ParkPredators  | /audiochuckllc TikTok: @audiochuck Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Dahlia Diambra. In the case I'm going to tell you about today, unfolded in a section of remote woods near Bucks Lake and Plumas National Forest in northern California. According to plumus County.org, the lake is known for its 17 miles of beautiful shoreline in proximity to both the Pacific Crest Trail and Bucks Lake Wilderness. If you're into hiking, fishing, water sports, or just rest and relaxation, this is a place for you. which explains why in late summer 2015, two young men who were close friends decided to take a weekend camping trip there. They packed up their supplies and planned out where they wanted to spend their nights in the forest. But at daybreak, the morning after they arrived, something horrific was discovered. The woods they'd been camping in were on fire.

One of them was gone, and the other had a bizarre story that involved illicit drugs, violence, and betrayal. This is Park Predators. In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 22nd, 2015, firefighters in Plumas County, California responded to an urgent emergency call from visitors at Buck's Lake, who said that a brush fire was ripping through the area and growing larger with each passing minute. Because the recreation space was such a popular spot for campers, emergency crews immediately got to work battling the blaze. But as they made their way into the flames, they stumbled upon something even more alarming, a young man who appeared to be unconscious. He had numerous stab wounds to his neck and wrists and was obviously in really bad shape. He was immediately transported to Enloe Medical Center in Chico,

and when he regained consciousness, investigators learned that he was 23-year-old Sheldon Stewart, an Oakland resident who said he'd been camping that weekend with his best friend, 20-year-old Trevor Holminsky. Sheldon told authorities that he and Trevor had set up their camp in a more remote section of the forest off the beaten path between the parking lot and one of the designated campgrounds. But at some point the previous night, Sheldon claimed Trevor had stabbed him and then taken off into the landscape. Investigators didn't have enough information yet to really question Sheldon's story. Plus, at first blush, he seemed genuinely shaken up by what had happened. The district attorney for Plumis County at that time later told Crime Watch Daily.

that Sheldon came across as cooperative, polite, and well-spoken. And based on what authorities had to go off of, it was looking like Trevor might be the potential threat, since, according to Sheldon, he'd attacked him and was now loose somewhere in the forest potentially capable of harming someone else. During his initial interview with detectives, Sheldon told them that after arriving in the woods, he and Trevor had smoked cannabis together and taken multiple hits of LSD.

Then, after a while of tripping on acid, he claimed that Trevor had sexually propositioned him, but he rejected his friend's advances. After that, he alleged that Trevor got more aggressive, and then things turned violent. Sheldon would later recount what happened next in this way. Quote, I just kind of open my eyes and look behind me like this without moving,

and the next thing I know he's stabbing me in my neck. They said I got stabbed in the neck like ten times. I don't really remember all that happening. I just remember him standing over me. I kicked him and stood up, and he realized after the knife wasn't sharp, and he just threw it and pulled out another knife. End quote. In the scuffle, Sheldon said he'd stabbed Trevor on his arm at least two times,

and it was at that point Trevor ran off into the woods. Sheldon claimed he then laid on the forest floor for several hours thinking he was going to bleed to death and eventually passed out. Now, while this interview was happening, firefighters were still on scene in the national forest trying to put out the brushfire. But as they were in the middle of that process, they discovered something that stopped them cold. Inside a smoldering burn pit curled up in the fetal position was a severely charred human body. As soon as they saw it, they reported it to the Plumas County Sheriff's Office,

and from the jump, it was evident to investigators that the person in the pit had not ended up there by accident. A detective told Crime Watch Daily that the only way the body could have been burned so severely was if someone had been stoking the fire it was in, which I know is a pretty morbid mental image, but it's an important detail for context later. Anyway, from that point forward, investigators treated the brush fire like a crime scene and began investigating the whole situation as a homicide.

But they were up against some big challenges, because, you see, the forest fire still wasn't completely under control yet. The district attorney for Plumis County would later describe the scene as being chaotic and scary for everyone who was up there at the time. And perhaps the biggest issues authorities had to address were who was the deceased individual, how many suspects were they dealing with,

were there any other victims? And what was the motive? Back at the hospital, investigators continued questioning Sheldon, especially because they now knew someone was dead and they figured he could probably shed more light on the situation. They'd also spoken with people who'd been staying at a nearby campground the previous night. And those folks said they'd heard what sounded like people arguing or fighting between 3 and 4 a.m.

And then later, shortly after 6 o'clock in the morning, they'd all woken up and realized the woods were on fire. Investigators had a lot of questions for Sheldon because the more they spoke with him and really got a good look at the stab wounds on his neck, the more those injuries appeared to them to be self-inflicted. If you remember, Sheldon's story was that Trevor had stabbed him amid a tussle for Trevor's knife. Yet, investigators noticed that the slashes to Sheldon's neck were all in the same area and fairly linear. So not wounds that were as sporadically inflicted as one might expect to see in a situation like he'd described.

So detectives asked the 23-year-old straight up if he'd stabbed himself, to which Sheldon replied, no, he hadn't. Then they questioned him about the cuts on his wrists. He admitted that he'd done those himself because, after being stabbed in the neck, he'd become so convinced he was going to die that he got extremely despondent. He told authorities, quote, because my neck was bleeding, I thought I was going to die out there, and I was really sad that my best friend just left me there to die and stab me in the neck.

I was screaming and nobody came to help me. I just wanted to die out there. I knew I wasn't going to make it out, end quote. He also admitted to setting the brush fire, but only to signal for hell. Investigators, though, remained suspicious of his story. But for the time being, they had a lot of other leads they needed to follow up on, and they knew Sheldon wasn't going anywhere since he was still recovering in the hospital. During his interview, other detectives who'd checked the parking lot near Bucks Lake

found an older model Honda that was registered to Trevor Holminski, but it was locked and the keys weren't nowhere inside. After finding the car, investigators paid a visit to an address in Antioch, California, that was listed on its registration. The address was about three and a half hours southeast of Buck's Lake, and as authorities would soon learn, belonged to Trevor's parents, Allison and Frank Holminsky. The couple was at home when a police officer from Antioch Police Department knocked on their door. He asked them if they knew Trevor Holminski, to which they responded, he was their son.

The officer told Allison and Frank that there had been an incident involving him up at Buck's Lake, but he didn't really give them a ton of details. He just handed them a number for the Plumas County Sheriff's Office and told them to call it. The Holminsky's told me that at that moment, they immediately thought their son had been in a car accident or something. To them, hearing the term incident, caused them to assume Trevor had likely crashed his car

or been hit while walking. You know, a scenario that their minds could make sense of. But after calling the sheriff's office, they learned that not only was Trevor missing, his friend Sheldon had been seriously injured and the forest area that they'd been camping in was actively on fire. Most concerning of all, authorities eventually informed them that they'd found a charred body. As Frank and Allison were speaking with investigators, they had a ton of thoughts swirling in their heads.

They were trying to answer law enforcement's questions as to whether anyone else had gone camping with their son other than Sheldon because it was apparent that police really wanted to figure out who the burned body belonged to. And it was at that point the Holminsky's learned Sheldon was claiming that Trevor had stabbed him and then disappeared into the woods, which was an alarming report because Allison and Frank realized that investigators had no choice but to suspect one of two scenarios was going on. Either Trevor was the dead body, or he was a fugitive who'd left potentially two victims in his wake. The Holminsky's obviously tried calling Trevor's cell phone to see if they could get a hold of him, but because he'd gone to such a remote area,

their calls never went through. The last time they'd seen or heard from him was the day prior, Friday, August 21st. He'd joined them for lunch at a restaurant in Antioch to visit with some friends who were in town from Japan. Allison and Frank both told me that during that lunch, Trevor had gone on and on about how beautiful the Bucks Lake area was and how much he was looking forward to camping there.

Allison told me that her son had never been to that particular recreation space before, which was one of the reasons he was. so eager to go. Frank said that no one was concerned about him traveling out there because it seemed like he'd done his research and they knew he was comfortable staying in the woods overnight. After the family finished their lunch, Allison said she and Frank watched Trevor walk toward his car and she told him she loved him and to have fun and be careful. For some reason, though, she got a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach at that moment that she described to me as heavy-hearted. She said it felt like a warning that something was going to happen. She just couldn't put her finger on

what that something was. Looking back now, it might have been a mother's intuition because there was nothing that Trevor did or said at their lunch that had given her a reason to feel like something bad was going to happen to him. Once he was out of sight, Allison and Frank didn't hear from him again. She told me it was their understanding he was going to go back to his place to pack up his camping gear and then pick up Sheldon after he got off work. After that, all they knew was that the guys were going to drive to Buck's Lake

and would likely hit rush hour traffic on the way. At no point during Trevor's drive did his parents talk with him, because Allison said she knew that when the duo would be making their drive, she assumed it would have been a bad time to be on the phone, just given the traffic they'd likely get caught in. By the time the Holminsky's were in touch with law enforcement, though, investigators had already spent hours at the hospital interviewing Sheldon. And slowly but surely, his story began to unravel.

On Monday, August 24th, Frank and Allison drove to the county seat of Quincy to meet up with investigators. On their way, they visited Trevor's dentist to get copies of his dental records. Officials had asked them to get that information so that the pathologist who was examining the burned body could figure out if the victim was Trevor or not. When Allison and Frank arrived in Quincy around midday, authorities took the dental records and also asked them to provide samples of their DNA. Official confirmation via genetic testing came in on Wednesday,

and 100% concluded that the victim from the burn pit, was Trevor. His parents told me that not long after they arrived in Quincy, they'd known in their hearts their son was probably gone, but Allison said, until they knew for sure, for sure it was him, they couldn't help but spend Monday morning and night holding on to a tiny glimmer of hope that it wasn't Trevor. She described that part of their life as a bad dream. One moment they were up, the next they were down. Frank told me that during he and his wife's meeting with investigators on Monday the 24th, all of the detectives involved in the case had been present, as well as the Plumas County District Attorney. He and Allison cooperated fully and answered as many questions as they

could, which included detectives inquiring a lot about the nature and extent of Sheldon and Trevor's friendship. It was around this time the Holminsky's learned that Sheldon was claiming that their son had propositioned him and that the stabbing had stemmed from that. Allison told me that Trevor was bisexual and knew that since he was a teen, and at the time of his death, he'd been in a relationship with a young woman for about a year. According to his parents, he was extremely smitten with her. In the months and weeks leading up to the crime, Trevor and his girlfriend had been spending more time together, to the point where he wasn't hanging out with Sheldon as much. During Allison and Frank's meeting with investigators, detectives informed them that they had doubts

about the credibility of Sheldon's claims, but as far as physical evidence went, they hadn't found much in the forest to prove or disprove what he said. The fire had scorched most everything in its path and presented challenges when it came to forensic evidence. For example, they said they hadn't found any camping gear, personal belongings, Trevor's cell phone, car keys, sleeping bag, nothing, which Frank thought was really unusual. He figured even if those things had been burned in the fire, there should still have been some sign of them around because at a minimum, the phone and keys were made of metal. So unwilling to just say thank you and move on, Frank asked police if they tried searching

the forest with metal detectors, but detectives responded saying, no, they hadn't thought of that. Naturally, Frank strongly encouraged them to go back out into the woods using that kind of equipment. And wouldn't you know it, when they did that the following day, investigators found a trove of additional physical evidence. They ended up locating a second burn pit that someone was. had tried to cover up with dirt. This pit was in a completely different area than where Trevor's body had been found.

And as authorities dug down into it, they began pulling out things like a folding knife, backpack, car keys, a cell phone, Trevor's camping shovel. And it was immediately clear that each of those items had been buried at a different depth or layer in the ground. All of the things had ash or dirt on top of them, and it was evident that whoever had put the stuff there likely intended for. for it to never be found. Additionally, results from Trevor's autopsy also added an interesting new wrinkle in the case.

Allison told me that the report showed her son had been stabbed twice, once in the chest and once in the back, and there was also a large hole in the base of his skull near the right side. There was no evidence of soot or smoke in his airways, which was somewhat comforting to her because that meant Trevor had already died before he was set on fire. A doctor who was a friend of the Holminsky's took a look at the autopsy report and told Allison and Frank that the stab wound to Trevor's chest had pierced his heart and likely caused him to bleed out very quickly. But the injury to his skull was puzzling. The Holminsky's told me that no one involved in the investigation ever really brought this injury up.

I guess because it was so obvious that the stab wounds were what had killed Trevor, but for Frank and Allison, the skull fracture is kind of a big deal because they suspect it could indicate their son was struck with a hard object and rendered unconscious either before or while he was being stabbed. If the former option is what happened, Frank says his theory is that his son likely never saw the attack coming. He believes that Trevor got into his sleeping bag, assumed the fetal position just like his body was when it was found, and then Sheldon ambushed him while he was sleeping. One reason Frank is so convinced of this theory is because Trevor was very, very strong. Frank knows that if his son had gone one-on-one in a fight with Sheldon, he would have beaten him.

However, if Trevor was taken by surprise or was knocked out before he could summon his defenses and fight off a knife attack, well, then Frank believes Trevor stood no chance. He and Allison do accept the fact that their son may have consumed LSD while camping with Sheldon, because they'll be the first to tell you that Trevor had gone through some tough teenage years. But they don't think that anything Sheldon claims Trevor did that fateful night in the forest had happened. They told me that from a very young age, their son was a super bright kid and always got good grades, even though sometimes his intelligence would get him into trouble at home and in school. For example, Trevor had this one math teacher who he corrected and solved a problem in fewer steps than the teacher did.

And despite Allison and Frank's best efforts, Trevor would always find a way to sneak out of their house by rigging the alarm system they'd put in place to notify them if he tried to get out his bedroom window. But even for all his pesky adolescent antics, he was still a very present, outgoing person. He was athletic, had a good sense of humor, didn't care what people thought of him, and above all, really loved reading words or anything that had to do with language. Allison told me that Trevor became quite the gifted wordsmith in grade school, which translated really well to his interest in music and sound production. He loved nature and was very compassionate towards people and animals.

She said he also had a soft spot for the underserved and less fortunate. Allison said that Trevor was always a deep thinker, and as he got older, that particular aspect of his personality became a conduit for depression. She said that early on she and Frank made sure he had all the necessary mental health support he needed, including different therapy programs and therapists, but over the years, Trevor's mental health continued to have moments of decline. He started acting out, not caring as much about his schoolwork, and eventually began using substances. When he was in his mid-teenskies were approached by one of his therapists who recommended they consider inpatient therapy for him,

but not at a traditional mental health facility, at an outdoor wilderness program. The specific program they were told about came highly recommended, and it aimed to help kids deal with behavioral problems while teaching them outdoor survival skills. So Trevor went through that program. for 98 days, and in his own words, it completely changed his life. After that, he spent nine months in a residential treatment program before winding down his behavioral and mental health treatment at a therapeutic boarding school in Provo, Utah.

That part of the program was more focused on schooling than it was on intensive therapy, because at that point, most of the participants had been making significant strides and were figuring out what they wanted to do next in their lives as far as pursuing higher education, employment, and so forth. According to his mom Allison, when Trevor finished everything, he was 17 years old. But because he hadn't been in a traditional high school setting for a while, he was short a few subjects and credits. So it didn't make sense for him to go back to a public school education.

Instead, he got his GED and eventually enrolled at Expression College. By 2015, though, his professional aspirations to go into sound production had sort of waned, and he became more interested in joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He'd become an avid rock climber while living in Utah and was physically fit. During that time, he met a military recruiter at a rock climbing gym and eventually realized, for several reasons, that the Marine Corps might be a good fit for him. He'd even take in the Armed Services vocational aptitude battery test, and according to his parents, he passed with one of the highest scores that his recruiter had ever seen.

So Trevor decided to move forward toward enlistment and eventually relocated to Oakland, California, where he got a two-bedroom apartment and later had a roommate named Alana, who was also attending the same college as him. It was Alana who'd introduced Trevor to Sheldon, who at the time was also going to Expression College. Sheldon and Trevor quickly became good friends,

and Trevor started to spend more time with him than he did with his roommate, Alana. Because of his familiarity with the great outdoors and survival skills he learned while in the wilderness program, Trevor enjoyed being in the mountains. He went camping with his buddies, including Sheldon, and Allison told me that prior to Trevor's murder, he and Sheldon had actually gone camping several times together. There wasn't a bone in her son's body that was intimidated by nature.

He knew how to start a fire without matches, how to locate water sources, where to sleep to stay out of the wind, and how to orient himself in the woods to avoid getting lost. In a subsequent interview with Sheldon after the crime, authorities confronted him head on and revealed that they suspected he'd murdered his best friend. At that point, they had the additional physical evidence from the second burn pit, so they were confident in challenging Sheldon about his story. But he denied killing Trevor and claimed he hadn't set his body on fire either. However, when shown the physical evidence that had been found buried at the crime scene,

Sheldon eventually changed his tune. He confessed to stabbing Trevor but said, it didn't happen for reasons authorities might think. Sheldon claimed that he'd been defending himself when he fatally stabbed his friend. In his second version of the story, he said that he'd never intended to stab Trevor. But when he did, Trevor had asked him to put him out of his misery because he knew that he would probably bleed to death because of his injuries. In other words, Sheldon was claiming that what happened between him and Trevor had been self-defense

and then a mercy killing. When investigators asked Sheldon why he'd taken the extra, extra step of burning his friend, Sheldon responded that subconsciously he was trying to hide evidence. He stated at one point in an interview, quote, It doesn't matter. I'm going to prison for the rest of my life anyway, I figure. Yes, I started the fire. I was sitting around him. I was sitting next to him contemplating what just happened, what I did, and I started the fire. I thought someone would either come get me or I would just die out there, end quote.

The same weekend as the crime, authorities ended up arresting Sheldon, and not long after, the DA of Plumas County formally charged him with murder and arson. He was held on $1 million bail pending his arraignment. The murder charge alone carried a maximum penalty of life in prison. The big question in this case, though, was why? Why had Sheldon allegedly done such a horrible thing to his best friend? The district attorney of Plumas County at the time later told Crime Watch Daily and CBS News

that he was never really sure. But he definitely believed the reason Sheldon had so many slash wounds on his wrists was because he likely waffled back and forth between thinking he could get away with murder and trying to die by suicide. The DA said that based on all the evidence investigators had found, nothing supported a self-defense scenario. But still, when the case went to trial,

nearly two years later in May 2017, the defense's strategy was exactly that, self-defense and being under the influence of LSD. According to coverage by CBS News, Sheldon's lawyers argued that he'd been so wildly affected by the drug that neither he nor Trevor were in their right minds. And when Trevor supposedly attacked him, Sheldon had become fearful for his life.

However, in his statements to investigators, Sheldon stated that he did recognize that he'd made the decisions that resulted in Trevor's death. Period. End of story. Prosecutors also pointed out that Sheldon had unique experience as a pitmaster cook at a barbecue restaurant in Oakland. And thus, would have had the knowledge and skills, unlike a lot of folks, on how to burn something thoroughly, which was exactly what had happened to Trevor's body. After just a few hours of deliberation, jurors found Sheldon gills.

guilty of murder and arson. He was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison plus seven years for the arson charge. However, that prison time would run concurrently with the 26 years. The trial had been an emotional experience for the Holminsky family. They'd had to endure hearing all the details of the crime and wincing as they listened to Sheldon's defense team essentially tear down Trevor's character. To be clear, though, the judge who sentenced Sheldon ultimately had the final word on Sheldon's unreliable claims that Trevor was the aggressor in this case.

He said, quote, such a theory is only based on one of the defendant's many versions of this incident, end quote. According to coverage by the Mercury News, the judge at one point even referred to Sheldon's version of events as a fantasy. Sheldon later appealed his conviction, but that request was denied in 2019. As of this recording, he remains incarcerated at a California state prison.

His inmate profile reflects that he won't be eligible for parole until at least 2032. Frank Holminski told me that the worst part about this experience, aside from losing his son, is that Sheldon has never provided any definitive details or insight into what really happened between him and Trevor. There's a lot of blanks in his story that have never been filled. So Allison and Frank have been left to their own imaginations to try and fill those gaps. They realize that they will likely. never know what happened or why, and that's extremely frustrating. The DA who prosecuted the case told Crime Watch Daily in part, quote,

I think what caused Sheldon to do this is something that was known only by two people, and Trevor took that to his grave, end quote. Frank's theory is that Sheldon grew jealous of the direction Trevor's life was going, meaning his son was in a good relationship, had a loving family, had financial security, and there was something in Sheldon that resented that. Now, that's just Frank's personal opinion. We'll possibly never know why Sheldon did what he did. But I tend to agree with Frank's position. It's very possible Sheldon just wanted the life that Trevor had, or maybe became obsessed with him and didn't want him to get too serious with his girlfriend. Who knows?

An interesting story, though, that Allison heard from Trevor's girlfriend, which I think could provide some insight on what exactly was going on with Sheldon, had to do with a prior incident between the young men. Trevor's girlfriend told his parents that overall she'd never really liked Sheldon, and that was reinforced one time when the three of them were hanging out at Trevor's apartment. Trevor's girlfriend said that Sheldon was showing them a taser he'd bought, and Trevor verbally pondered what it would be like to get tased. So Sheldon, with Trevor's consent, had tased him while she filmed the whole thing on her cell phone.

After the initial tasing, though, Trevor had expressed that one time was enough for him, but Sheldon kept advancing toward him as if he was going to keep tasing him, which, in hindsight, was unsettling for his mom Allison to learn about. And then there were also quite a few online essays that Trevor's dad Frank discovered that Sheldon had allegedly written using a pen name. Those writings discussed dark subject matter, including violence. The essays were so disturbing to the whole men's story, that Frank actually sent them to the judge overseeing Sheldon's case.

But in his haste to get the info to the judge, Frank completely forgot to say that the writings had been produced by Sheldon. So nothing ever happened with that. At least not that the Holminsky's are aware of. In the aftermath of the crime, Trevor's girlfriend stayed in Frank and Allison's lives for a short while, but then she had to move on with her life. Frank and Allison eventually cremated their son's remains, and to this day they still scatter portions of his assets.

ashes in different countries and cities they visit across the globe. When I asked the couple what they think Trevor would be doing today if his life hadn't been cut short, they told me they believe he likely would have married his girlfriend and gone on to become a career marine. They emphasize, like so many people who go through tragedies like this do, that losing a loved one, especially a child, is not something you ever get over.

You just learn to cope with it. They hope that you, the people listening to Trevor's story, don't think of him as some young man who was just a murder victim. Allison told me there's so much more to her son's story than that, and she and her husband will use every opportunity they can to talk about him and his life. A lasting mark that Frank has to remember his son is a tattoo on his upper arm. After Trevor's time in the Wilderness Program that reshaped his life, he self-produced a documentary titled Blue Crow.

And in that film, which is still online, there's a brief moment where he laughs. With help, Frank got the audio of that laugh transferred into a sound wave, and the modulating lines are tattooed on his body. The ink is an enduring reminder of the joy his son was to their family while he was alive, and the bright light he remains, even in death. Park Predators is an audio check production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website,

parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram at Park Predators. I think Chuck would approve.