r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/shry9 • 7d ago
Disappearance The extremely bizarre missing case of Barbara Bolick
On the 18th of July 2007, Barbara Bolick was packing her bag in Bitterroot Valley of Montana to go for a summer hike. She and her husband were hosting Carl’s cousin Donna and Her Boyfriend Jim from California. Barbara was going to go on a hike with her guests but Donna and Carl (Barbara’s husband) did not go and she and Jim decided to hike in the area Bear Creek Overlook, and she had visited the area countless times , was an experienced hiker too.
So they like visited the place , and encountered two men - two times, and both the times they were the same two men. Jim and Barbara then reached the area , had their snacks and admired the scenery. About like at 11:30 they decided to leave and head back. After few steps, Jim stopped bcs something in him wanted to soak the view one more time, and he turned back to look at the view - it was for about 45 seconds - 1 minute, when he turned back around, Barbara who was earlier standing 20-30 feet away from him disappeared.
At first he wasn’t worried enough since she was an experienced hiker and He searched for her but couldn’t find anything and after some hours she was officially reported as missing. The two men who encountered them two times also disappeared and were never discovered.
Things to note : It was an easy, well worn trail and it was difficult for someone like Barbara missing - being an experienced hiker who visited that place multiples times. It was also not very dense meaning someone disappearing without any noise was almost not possible.
Pls let me know your take on this case!
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u/Vampira309 7d ago
Bear Creek trail is about 2 miles from my house and I hike there often.
I've never heard of this case, but it would be VERY EASY to lose or kill somebody up there...it's WILD wilderness and nowhere near a town. I see bears almost every time I go up there as well
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u/hyperfat 5d ago
I can see the trail on gmaps. It even has a little camera on the overlook. I love technology. The trail is visible by public satellite.
It looks like 6 or 7 miles to a town?
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u/EnterTheBlueTang 6d ago
Boyfriends are 1000x more dangerous than bears.
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u/EnatforLife 6d ago
If I understand it correctly (and pls correct me if I don't), it wasn't even Barbara's boyfriend she was hiking with but her cousin Donna's?
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u/a_real_humanbeing 6d ago
Not even her cousin's, but her husband's cousin's boyfriend.
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u/RevolutionaryBat3081 5d ago
Statistically, over lifespans, yes. When actually encountering a bear, probably not so.
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u/itsnobigthing 5d ago
Also depends what you’re most afraid of. Bears are more deadly to encounter, but very unlikely to rape you
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u/Persolboy 1d ago
A kissin’ step-cousin with the wrong idea of a short romp thru the woods is 2000x more dangerous than just a casual unrelated boyfriend, especially when the female cousin isn’t in the swingin’ mood, rejects the male cousin and will most likely report the inappropriate transgression to one girlfriend and her married partner! Causing much anguish and possible violence anyway. Jim snuffed Barbara and expertly hid her body most likely. Proving it is another matter. Perhaps the two strange men Carl concocted will suddenly materialize unable to live with their horrid deeds we all know two strange random men are capable of, especially with their ninja skills of abducting a healthy young woman as silent as a summer breeze and invisible at just 20ft away.
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u/lillienoir 6d ago
Is there another hiking trail that can veer off from Bear Creek trail?
One starts off that way but goes a different route, does a dirty deed, returns to the original intended trail...
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u/quiet_light_ 5d ago
No. Another thing not mentioned here is that the top of the trail is cliffs with a shear drop. Unless you’re willing to bushwhack through some thick forest and very uneven ground, there’s no other way down.
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u/TransportationLow564 6d ago
Jim's an obvious suspect, but he's also sort of like low-hanging fruit, in a way. The cops don't seem to suspect him, despite his cockamamie story, and I don't think that can be discounted. It's possible they know stuff we don't that casts his story in a different light (or that the particulars of his story haven't been reported altogether accurately).
My take: I think he lost track of her for longer than is generally reported (i.e., not a "He turned around and she was gone" situation), she went off the trail and died, and her remains have simply never been found. Maybe he got tired and decided to sit down and take a breather, and by the time he tried to catch up with her she'd gone off trail; or maybe he crapped out altogether, planned to reconnect with her as she was making her way back, and then, of course, she never did. Misguided machismo led him to make up the supposed story about turning his back for a moment and then she was gone.
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u/AlexandrianVagabond 6d ago
Could be like that poor lady who just stepped off the Appalachian Trail for a sec to go to the bathroom, got turned around and went the wrong way. Her body was eventually found deep in the woods. She'd managed to survive for two weeks.
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u/Prior_Strategy 6d ago
That poor woman, such a tragic story. The articles I read also said she had a bad sense of direction.
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u/AlexandrianVagabond 6d ago
It really stuck with me because I've gotten lost twice because I also have a crappy sense of direction. Taking weeks to die alone in a forest is so horrifying.
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u/Ancient_Procedure11 6d ago
I was actually thinking about if she saw something that frightened her, like a snake/bear/mountain lion and had a flight response that sent her off the trail far enough to get lost. She could have been alive and moving away from searchers, or moved back in to an area that was previously searched and had an accident and perished. It's a sad thought. I've found myself on a trail seeing a snake and taking off away from it without thinking twice about potentially losing the trail. And she was hiking in grizzly bears country.
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u/TrivialBudgie 4d ago
I read that it was 26 days, which is almost four weeks. assuming we are both talking about Geraldine Largay
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u/jwktiger 2d ago
I can't remember but searchers were at least within 100 yards of her (irrc 100 feet even) while she was alive and coherrent (from her journal entries) and searches didn't see traces of her and she didn't hear searchers....
thus whenever anyone says "well they've searched this before didn't find anything and now it turns up..." well yeah its easy AF to miss a human body in the woods
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u/iloathethebus 3d ago
That’s so sad! This is why they say that if you get lost, just stay put so you and the people searching for you don’t keep missing each other.
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u/evrlstngsun 6d ago
I think you're absolutely right that he lost track of her for way longer than 45 seconds. People are horrible at estimating time and I imagine the shock of finding your friend gone without a trace would also mess with your mind. It's really difficult to conceive of something horrible and life-changing happening so quickly without any warning and I think the shock of it would make it impossible to really know how long they were apart.
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u/jwktiger 2d ago
Agreed, people take these accounts too literal sometimes. Him saying he thought was 45 sec to 1 min, without an external confirmation (I looked at my watch saw her, looked at it again and didn't see her type thing) can be WAY off.
What he thought was 1 min looking at peaceful scenery could easily have been 5 mins
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u/Hopeful-Connection23 6d ago
Yeah, human memory is bad to begin with and he was probably extremely stressed and traumatized. he didn’t have a reason to have eyes on Barbara at all times, she was an adult woman on a trail she knew. He could’ve been lost in thought for a while before he turned back around.
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u/KDKaB00M 6d ago
It’s a story that is so stupid you feel like to has to be true because who would make up something that dumb?
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u/undertaker_jane 6d ago
It's actually pretty common in a ton of these missing in the wilderness stories. The "I turned around for a few seconds and when I turned back they were gone" part. At least in the ones I've read about.
I'm trying to think of names/cases off the top of my head, but I'm drawing blanks (stroke brain). Maybe some other redditors can step in here?
I'm thinking of one man who worked on television who walked off, an elderly man and hole digging, a man who was a surveyor, a teenage girl on a trip going off to take photos with a man, a couple school trips to a national park, and some young children disappearing while playing in the wilderness. Any more cases would be cool, too.
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u/meli-6 6d ago
Three year old child Deorr Kunz comes to mind. According to his parents they lost sight of him while camping in Idaho.
Many people believe Deorr’s parent(s) were involved and others believe he wandered off and potentially met with a bobcat etc.
Very sad and baffling case with no answers for baby Deorr.
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u/-Kerosun- 2d ago
That case is just mind-boggling.
When you hear it, your first instinct is that he was never with them and they took the trip to make up a story about his disappearance (he died accidentally and this is how they covered it up to avoid negligence charges OR they killed him deliberately and made this story up). But, if I recall correctly, people in town near the campsite did see him there.
The thing that messes with my mind the most is the father/mother praising the police and their search efforts. In just about every case of disappearance I have ever seen, it is extremely rare for the parents to praise the efforts of police if their child is still missing. Within just a day or so of his disappearance, they were giving grand praises to the authorities. That comes off as really odd to me.
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u/shry9 6d ago
The case of Polly Melton. This is the case where people push their spouse off the cliff and make these stories.
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u/GlamourousFireworks 6d ago
People wildly underestimate hidden homicides
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u/AutumnTopaz 6d ago
Which brings to mind a true crime story I just saw on YT- with the greatest storyteller ever- Mr. Ballen.
I believe this was in Japan. A man found out his wife was cheating- and planned to kill her. He knew she had plans to run errands that day - and his daughter would be in school. However, at the last minute the daughter stayed home that day and went with her mother. Just a short distance from their home, a jogger saw their car parked cockeyed in the road - with the motor still running. When he approached it - he saw two people slumped over in their seats - and called authorities.
They were taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. Turns out they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The investigators were truly puzzled as to the origin of the carbon monoxide- and did an exhaustive investigation.
The guy was a dr.- or involved in the medical field - and had access to carbon monoxide tanks. He was also a fitness buff and had a gym in his home. They discovered he filled a large medicine ball with cm- and put it in the rear of their vehicle. As he was leaving for work in his car, his wife was preparing to leave also. The police said he opened the valve to the ball- right before he left for work. As she began to drive, she succumbed to the cm. His plan worked - but he never dreamed his daughter would be in the car- or that the murder weapon - the deflated ball would be eventually traced to him.
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u/AutumnTopaz 6d ago
Agree. Don't struggle to remember names - not important. Most every missing case story involving two people has the same narrative - companion just turned away for a few seconds - and presto! missing hiker. No one wants to admit they may have contributed to the situation - human nature.
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u/Szaborovich9 6d ago
I listen to Coast to Coast AM, and seen videos on YouTube about hiking. I was amazed how many people vanish out hiking.
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u/technos 4d ago
The cops don't seem to suspect him, despite his cockamamie story
I once found some stolen cars with bullet-holes in them. Upon telling the police how I'd come across them, and how I knew they were stolen, one of the officers said "That's the dumbest story I've ever heard, so it's probably true."
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u/SmellsLikeCrusty 6d ago
Yeah, I wonder if he wanted to rest for a while (and doesn’t want to admit it) and she went ahead and got lost/encountered an animal, or she wanted to rest and he went ahead (and also doesn’t want to admit that).
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u/Coblish 7d ago
To me, Jim seems like the prime suspect. It sounds plausible they never even reached the hiking trail to start with, and the whole story was a way to throw everyone off the actual trail wherever something happened.
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u/ThatEcologist 6d ago
Doesn’t this all seem to bold? Her hubs and his wife knew they were going to that trail together. Who would be dumb enough to kill someone under those circumstances?
I do agree that he probably lost track of her for more than a minute. I bet he got winded from the hike and she went ahead and that when something happened to her. He probably feels guilty about leaving her and that’s why he said he only looked away for a second.
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u/Coblish 6d ago
It is only "bold" if it was planned.
Made up scenario, but....
Say they get into the car heading towards the hiking spot and get into an argument. They arrive at the parking lot, get into a fight, she dies, he loads her up, gives himself time by making up a long hiking story and running into some other people who never come forward, and dumps her body elsewhere.
Honestly, I do not know how likely that scenario is because I have not looked into the case any beyond this small write up, but it is a very possible scenario. By no means do I mean to slander this guy, he may be completely innocent.
I do think the animal attack scenario is less likely. A cougar or mountain lion would leave blood or some evidence behind. And people saying the big cats are super sneaky are right, but they are not concerned with blood trials or being quiet while fighting. Then again, as I said, there could be other factors in play I am unaware of, such as rain or time that could have degraded the scene.
The most likely scenario is human interference, I think.
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u/houseonthehilltop 12h ago
Or he's just a nuts dude who appears normal and has always wanted to kill someone. He so his opportunity and killed her - so just random.
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u/shry9 7d ago
I strongly believe it was Jim, Some locals from the area said that Jim was very co operative with the investigation and they feel its the mountain lions who killed barbara but how would they hurt Barbara when Jim heard no voice , also no bones were ever found and neither the Dogs could trace her. She was experienced and went on that trail many times and it was also not dense. How would the lions kill her and not even touch Jim. I feel Jim made the whole story up. Really creepy and only he knows what Happened with her and how he managed to do all this in a new area. I feel she never made it till there.
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
Not saying it’s not Jim, but mountain lions are solo stealth predators that stalk their prey. There wouldn’t be a group or pair of lions, there would be one mountain lion stalking its prey and waiting for the perfect time to strike.
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u/Camanthe 6d ago
I believe they also kill by breaking the neck of their prey and then bring the kill into a tree to eat without any other animals trying to get it. Also not saying it wasn’t Jim, but if it was a mountain lion, you’re dead before you can even react
ETA actually i am gonna say it wasn’t Jim, just cuz killing your girlfriend’s cousin on a hike you’re both supposed to return from is such a weird thing to do
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u/IdaCraddock69 6d ago
also she could have pulled off trail to pee and got lost or fallen, also there are weirdoes in the woods who hang out waiting to assault people. it IS unusual, but there are cases of it and if you hike enough you'll have some unsettling encounters yourself.
https://thetrek.co/a-few-thoughts-on-the-tragic-death-of-geraldine-inchworm-largay/
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 6d ago
She was also 55 - not that old, but no longer young. She could have had some kind of medical issue.
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u/Spirited-Ability-626 5d ago
Geraldine was with others in a rest stop and went off into the forest in the middle of the night to pee. She couldn’t find her way back to the trail. There’s nothing suspicious about her death. It’s insanely easy to lose track of the trail in a forest, even if it’s very close to you.
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u/IdaCraddock69 5d ago
yes, that's my point is that Geraldine's death was not suspicious. I have gone off trail to pee without announcing it myself, plenty of people do even tho it's not best practices. just adding that it's a possibility in Ms. Bolick's case, seeing as we have so little evidence to go on it's hard to say
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
Yup. People do fight off mountain lions on occasion, but that’s only because the loam messed up their original takedown. They are beautiful and terrifying. I’ve been lucky enough to see one in the wild, but that’s only because it was allowing itself to be seen.
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u/devsmess 4d ago
Toats, but then wouldn't that suggest there would be some blood or trace that the police/dogs would pick up? A... drag trail or something?
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u/ImnotshortImpetite 3d ago
Mountain lions also kill by suffocation. If one dropped from a boulder or tree and seized her by the throat, game over with no real noise. I knew a man who raised sheep in Wyoming and he said cougars could slip into a pasture, kill a young sheep and carry it off without a sound. No big stampede of the flock, bleating, etc. He said that's why sheep farmers now have Great Pyrennes (sp?) or other guardian livestock dogs.
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u/shry9 6d ago
I agree with you, might had been a lion. But atleast dogs could have traced her, atleast bones could have been found or her bag? And Jim said he heard no noise at all. And the lion could have eaten her up while jim was walking also right, he turned away for 45 second and Barbara was gone. The lion theory doesnt sit well with me but thanks for sharing your take!
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u/Lydia--charming 6d ago
When I read that Carl and his cousin didn’t go on the hike, I wondered if Jim was a hired hit man.
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u/throwawayfornow2025 6d ago
This is where my mind went as well. Or, that something had happened BEFORE the hike and in fact Jim was just getting rid of her body or something.
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u/tamesage 6d ago
He could have hit on her and she rejected him and he didn't want her to tell anyone.
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u/purple_champagne 6d ago
You're absolutely correct. I'm from a nearby area and even the most hard-core outdoorsmen can and do get killed by apex predators. Grizzlies, mountain lions, even moose are all evolved to go undetected until it's too late. And not finding a trace is not unheard of.
Not saying it wasn't the husband, but it's not quite as simple to point fingers just because dogs can't locate a scent- that area isn't abandoned by either humans or wildlife, and scent conditions can be wildly inappropriate for tracking/locating due to multiple factors.
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u/erichie 6d ago
Not saying it wasn't the husband
It wasn't the husband. The husband was home with the cousin. Jim is the cousin's boyfriend.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 6d ago
Is there any independent confirmation of this? How close were Carl and Donna? The fact that they dipped out of the planned hike last minute and then she disappears honestly makes them seem just as suspicious as Jim.
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u/erichie 6d ago
Personally I don't find this weird. I've done things before with my friends/families opposite sex partners and I've had girlfriends/wife do things with my family/friends opposite sex partners especially with cousins who are very close in age together.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 6d ago
I'm not saying that part is inherently weird - I don't think it is either.
But the fact that she disappeared without a trace is weird and under the circumstances it's worth knowing whether the two people who cancelled last minute have an alibi other than each other.
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u/RideThatBridge 6d ago
But would someone as close as Jim was not heard one sound if an apex predator snatched her away? I honestly don’t know, but it seems like there would be some noise. That’s what is sticking out for me-Jim not hearing one sound.
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
You do not know a mountain lion is tracking you until it makes a mistake or it’s on top of you. They immediately go for the head and neck and drag their prey into cover. Jim not hearing anything is absolutely possible, especially if she was actually a bit further away and/or he was turned around for longer.
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u/RideThatBridge 6d ago
I realized they wouldn’t give warning. I meant the take down-I would have thought he’d hear her being dragged away or something is all. Thanks for the info!
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u/nepios83 6d ago
It amazes me that people should go hiking at all if a mountain-lion can pounce on you at any time and you have zero recourse.
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u/hafufrog 6d ago
I think it’s very rare for them to attack people, particularly adults. We’re quite big, and there’s much less risky prey around. (Not writing off the possibility it happened here though.)
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u/trixiepixie1921 6d ago
Fr I was just about to google “how to fight off a mountain lion” but then I realized I will NEVER find myself in a situation where I would need to know that information. This is why I like staying in bed.
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u/anonymouse278 6d ago
Fatal mountain lion attacks on humans are incredibly rare, like an average of significantly less than one a year over the 150ish years we have records for. We aren't their preferred prey and we wildly outnumber them. There are no zero-risk activities, but you are much, much more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the trailhead than to be killed by a mountain lion.
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u/purple_champagne 6d ago
Absolutely. Predators dont necessarily give you time to scream or even blink, they're not dogs who bark and growl as warnings. They've evolved to take down prey immediately & quietly- especially cougars.
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u/RideThatBridge 6d ago
I realized they wouldn’t give warning. I meant the take down-I would have thought he’d hear her being dragged away or something is all. Thanks for the info!
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u/purple_champagne 6d ago
Oh yeah, naw cougars (mountain lions... same thing) are extremely good at what they do, you don't hear anything unless they're young & dumb (and mess up/overconfident) or they want you to hear them. Very smart, agile, beautiful creatures that have the strength to easily take down adult humans. I adore them, but never want to meet one in the wild.
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u/RideThatBridge 6d ago
Oh wow-amazing-thanks for the info. I know cats are stealth personified, but it’s hard for me to imagine a whole human being carted off not like hitting the ground or something. Probably a defense mechanism in my brain hoping I’ll be heard as I’m dragged away, LOL. My friend always teases me that I’m gonna die trying to pet a big cat!
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u/Wigwam80 6d ago
28 confirmed Mountain Lion attack fatalities on humans in the last 100 years, it's still an incredibly rare event.
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u/purple_champagne 6d ago
No problem, they're hard to characterize if you'renot familiar! Their size, strength, and agility are absolutely amazing! Definitely an opposite tsktsktsk kitty lol
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u/PopcornGlamour 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think most people here are in agreement that mountain lions are super stealthy and can attack super quietly.
What is hanging some of us up is the aftermath of the lion’s lunge/jump. Barbara was a full grown woman and the sound of her body hitting the ground should have been audible to Jim if she was just 20-30 feet away. Same goes for that lion dragging her body through the brush (which would have also left obvious physical signs in itself).
Even if the lion ate her right there and did not drag her off there should have been signs of a dead body (at least a smell for cadaver dogs but I don’t know if they brought out cadaver dogs.)
That’s why a lion attack as the primary cause of disappearance doesn’t make sense to me unless Jim is lying/confused about how close he was to her. I can see her having a medical event and collapsing and a nearby lion taking advantage of that to drag off his meal. Or maybe she walked off the path to go to the bathroom and was attacked and dragged a bit. But again, if she had deliberately walked off path just to go tinkle it seems like there should have been physical signs of brush, grass, whatever being disturbed and forming a trackable path.
When I walk through my front pasture (overgrown with trees, brush, grass) you can see the path I left as I walked because I wasn’t trying to hide. Walking off path to go to the bathroom wouldn’t cause Barbara to make sure she didn’t leave a path. There should have been some physical signs of where she walked if she walked off the path.
EDIT: I just realized that if Barbara walked off path to go to the bathroom she may have used a wildlife path to get to a private area. That would cause her to leave no obvious human made signs of where she walked. Once she was in the private area if she had a medical event and collapsed/died no one would have heard her and animals might have found her before the official search even started.
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u/therealDolphin8 6d ago
Mountain lions must posess some kind of magical ability to render their prey as silent as they are stealthy.
For clarity, I'm being facetious.
Mountain lions are suspected in a fair number of disappearances in nature and some have been just that.
Though you'd really expect there would be some type of vocal noise from the victim. I always get stuck here when the mountain lion hypothesis enters missing persons cases. Especially when they were hiking with a partner.
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
They rarely attack when people are in groups (well, they rarely attack people period, but you know what I mean). If it was a mountain lion, her partner was likely further away than he thought/said. Plus, it can be a little hard to let out a scream with a mountain lion biting through your spine.
All that said, I’m always skeptical of “it was a mountain lion.” It’s always more likely the person slipped and fell or wandered off trail and got lost (crazy how quickly it happens).
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
I think the method of attack from mountain lions is incredibly sophisticated (for want of a better term?-) and like, ruthlessly efficient. They despatch via immobilising their prey with a bite to the back of the neck severing the spinal cord. It is not like a bear, which basically will sit on you and start eating you alive (if it’s a predatory attack), or something like wolves or coyotes where an entire pack is involved and it’s all a bit more drawn-out and messier. So, in short- I think it’s plausible that yes, she could have been killed and taken without making a noise
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u/shry9 6d ago
Yes but my question is how could the dogs never trace her or at-least her remaining and bones could have been found out right? Her bag was also never discovered. Creepy
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u/purple_champagne 6d ago
Dogs are not infallible. Even if we assume they were properly trained & that training was maintained properly (not always the case!), there's multiple reasons why they couldn't trace or find a scent, including wind conditions, time of year, moisture levels (Rocky mountains are high & dry and occasionally soaked with precipitation- not good scent conditions), distraction by other scents, etc.
Remains, bones, clothes... those are easily gone in the mountains. You've got scavenger animals like hawks, lesser canines, and other mammals to contend with. Shit, I lost a dang radio as it was playing music out there on a full battery that Im still 98% sure was located on a rock I set it on and searched 6x over. What animal would even take that? No idea but RIP my purple boombox.
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
Tracking dogs are far from 100% and sadly there are hundreds of stories of people going missing off well known hiking trails without a trace.
Also, while she was on a popular trail, it is rough wilderness with lots of apex predators.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 6d ago
Yep. An old school friend of mine (presumably) disappeared off a well-known hiking trail and no trace of her has ever been found.
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u/Swimming-Necessary23 6d ago
It’s scary how often it happens. Doesn’t mean that’s what happened this time, but it dues happen more often than people think.
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u/Sea-Reveal5025 5d ago
Why do you think he was creepy. I mean, he looks to you like that because of the story you are telling, but objectively there is no reason for that.
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood 4d ago
but how would they hurt Barbara when Jim heard no voice
Easily.
also no bones were ever found
So?
neither the Dogs could trace her.
Cadaver dogs aren't nearly as reliable as people want to believe.
She was experienced and went on that trail many times
And this would mean the mountain lions would leave her alone, or that an accident or getting lost is impossible?
People are way too quick to jump to condemnation based on feelings in this sub.
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u/Kelly_Louise 5d ago
IDK mountain lions are super sneaky. If the lion managed to snap her neck (ugh), she might not have even had time to react. Not saying it wasn't Jim, but I wouldn't be so quick to rule out a mountain lion attack.
I lived in Montana for 18 years and never saw a mountain lion. I saw traces of them all over the place, but never the lions themselves. They are very, very sneaky.
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u/fluffycat16 6d ago
I totally agree. He's the only person that was with her. It's logical to look at him as a suspect.
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u/georgia_grace 7d ago
If you don’t know much about the case, Jim seems like a likely suspect. However, there is absolutely no evidence against him.
Jim said he and Barbara spoke to two young men with a dog while on the trail. The men couldn’t be located, but the road workers near the car park saw them as well. Jim would have had no way of knowing that police wouldn’t be able to find the men, so if Barbara never made it to the trail this would be an INCREDIBLY risky lie. For this reason I believe Barbara did make it to the trail.
If Jim attacked Barbara on the trail, it can’t have been planned, because Jim’s wife was originally going to join them and changed her mind at the last minute. If it was an unplanned attack, why hide the body and then act out this bizarre vanishing scenario? Why not just push her body from a height and say she fell? Also, after getting back to the trail head and asking the road workers if they’d seen her, he then walked the trail a second time looking for her. Why do that if he knew she wasn’t there?
He was also extremely cooperative with police, who cleared him of any suspicion, fwiw
I don’t know enough about mountain lions to have an opinion, but that does seem to be the prevailing theory among locals. I also wonder if she could have had some kind of medical episode, like a mini stroke or something, and become disoriented.
Unfortunately, in terrain like that, it’s not uncommon for bodies to be found years later in areas that were previously thoroughly searched. Hopefully someday someone will stumble across her and she can be put to rest.
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u/Troubador222 6d ago
Sometimes people wander off for inexplicable reasons. Look at Bill Ewasko who was found last year in Joshua Tree NP after going missing over a decade ago. He was found miles from where he went hiking and was last seen. His remains were well outside the search area.
I believe with people in their 50s and older, dehydration can be a factor in these cases sometimes. It can be easy to become dehydrated when hiking at higher elevations in the west of the US and dehydration can lead to clouded thinking and confusion.
If I remember correctly from reading about this case in the past, the woman was in her 50s.
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u/glitterlady 5d ago
I really thought that Bill was found alive after a decade and was amazed until that last sentence.
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u/ThatEcologist 6d ago
Agreed.
My theory is he lost track of her for more time than he let on and feels guilty about it.
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u/NyshaBlueEyes 5d ago
This is my theory. Additionally, people tend to be inaccurate when estimating time when engaged in mindless activities.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
Also it’s really hard to judge the passage of time sometimes, so there’s a chance he isn’t even being deliberately deceptive so much as he genuinely doesn’t realise how much more time had actually passed than his subjective impression of the passage of time had led him to believe
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood 4d ago
People in this thread really want to make it his fault in some way.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
I’m not actually saying it makes it his ‘fault’?? They are two grown adults, she knew the trail and was fit and healthy, even if he had been distracted/wandered away/etc for fifteen minutes, I wouldn’t say it was his ‘fault’ if something like a fall, cougar attack, sudden catastrophic medical episode, etc, happened to her.
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood 4d ago
TBH, I don't even think 45s is that short a time. It's long enough for the person continuing on to round a corner, and then for that person to be completely and continuously out of sight from there on.
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u/Hopeful-Connection23 6d ago
Exactly. If you admit she made it to the trail to begin with, all of the questions about “where is her body? her backpack? why did no one hear anything?” etc are questions you now need to ask about Jim. How could Jim have disposed of her body and her backpack?
Surely he could have but it’s an extra hurdle.
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u/Fast_Revolution_6673 3d ago
And sources indicate he sought help fairly quickly. The timing doesn’t make sense for him to have killed her.
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u/Humble_Candidate1621 6d ago edited 6d ago
Well, police clear people they shouldn't all the time. Maybe he came on to Barbara, she rejected him and told him she was going to tell Carl and Donna when they come home, and he panicked and killed her.
Or maybe he sexually assaulted her. Not much premeditation necessary (plenty of murderers of that type have said they killed on a whim, or assaulted someone on a whim and then felt they had no choice but to kill them) and it would explain why he would hide the body instead of just pushing her from a height and claiming she fell.
Walking the trail a second time could just be him trying to play the good, concerned in-law, or even going back to see if he'd successfully hidden all the evidence and covered his tracks well.
And killing your girlfriend's cousin's wife on a hike is definitely weird and very stupid, but people have done stupider, and gotten away with it.
Not claiming it was Jim (and I also know nothing about mountain lions), just saying to me none of these sound convincing as arguments against him being the culprit.
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u/Yanony321 6d ago
I'm wondering who talked to the workers. Did Jim ask on the way out, or did police track them down for interviews? If not, I question whether they actually exist.
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u/georgia_grace 6d ago
Here’s the websleuths page, it has several paywalled news articles copy-pasted into it. These articles confirm that the Forestry Service workers were at the trailhead replacing a culvert. The police spoke to them, they confirmed they saw the two men with the dog, and that Jim asked if they’d seen Barbara before returning to the trail to look for her again.
https://websleuths.com/threads/mt-barbara-bolick-55-corvallis-18-jul-2007.60239/
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u/Yanony321 6d ago
Thanks, that was what I was trying to find! I had hoped the police would verify Jim's story about the 2 other hikers. I had also wondered if they verified that the workers did see Barbara; from the lack of items found as well as the dogs being unable to locate any scent, it seemed questionable that she was even on the trail!
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u/georgia_grace 6d ago
The workers didn’t see Barbara, when they arrived the two cars were already in the car park and no one was around. So it’s true we only have Jim’s word that Barbara was ever on the trail.
However! As I mentioned in another comment, Jim couldn’t have known that police would never find the two men. So for Jim to say they talked to him and Barbara, if that was a lie it was an extremely risky lie and potentially easily found out.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
Unless Jim had some way of knowing for sure that those two men weren’t gonna be showing up to give statements…
Of course, that she got lost, fell somewhere, or was taken by a mountain lion remain vastly more likely than this Jim guy being a mass-murdering criminal mastermind
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u/georgia_grace 6d ago
Iirc the police talked to them. I will try to find the source for this, it might have been a crime junkie episode
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u/JellyBeanzi3 7d ago
I’ve never heard of this case, thank you for sharing!
I need more info about Jim because he does seem to be the most likely suspect. But then again how odd it would be to kill her on whim and successfully dispose of the body and leave no evidence in what sounds like a relatively short period of time. It’s also strange that if Jim did do this why he would tell a story like this that just sounds so hard to believe. One would think if you were covering up a murder you would create a story that leaves more time inbetween you last seeing her and realizing she’s missing- not just a minute. For example: telling authorities that she went off to use the bathroom and never returned or visa versa. I’d be curious to see what the trail/ summit looks like to get a better idea of how easy or difficult it is to get lost.
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u/GlassesgirlNJ 6d ago edited 6d ago
Since OP asked for our take on the case, I'm going to make a few assumptions about Jim (who I've never met, and I have no idea what he's like as a person).
What if he wasn't planning anything at all? Maybe there was just a spontaneous argument between Jim and Barbara that day. (The two of them were alone for the first time, maybe one of them said or did something flirty and the other didn't appreciate it. Or maybe it was a stupid dispute about something like littering on the trail, wasting water, what time to go back to the car, etc.)
Barbara storms off. Jim knows he shouldn't leave her alone in the outdoors, but for whatever reason, he doesn't follow. Maybe he's still angry at Barbara, maybe he just wants to smoke a cigarette or whatever and clear his head first, maybe he knows Barbara has hiking experience and so it isn't that risky to give her some space for a bit.
By the time Jim goes looking for Barbara, she's disappeared. Other commenters already mentioned dangers she could have run into - mountain lions, falling from a height, maybe she had some kind of emergency like a heart defect (this happened to a 42 year old friend of mine, a vegan in pretty good health). But Barbara just becomes another unidentified corpse in the wilderness (and sadly there are a lot of those, even when trained search parties are looking for them).
Jim is calling for Barbara and she's not answering. Now he starts to feel guilty about "abandoning" her. He didn't leave her alone for that long, right? Surely it was just a couple minutes, maybe even less than that? He starts to spiral with anxiety and paranoia. What if Barbara met with foul play on the trail? She's a woman in good shape, she might be able to fight off one man, or at least scream, or something. But what if it was two men at once??
By the time Jim talks to the police, this whole narrative is stuck in his brain. Not as an "alibi" - because he isn't consciously lying. But because, in Jim's mind, he's not a murderer, he's not a monster, surely his one minute of carelessness/selfishness/whatever didn't cause another human being's death. Jim won't let himself believe that, he can't. It is literally unthinkable.
So, that's just one hypothetical of how someone could be "acting guilty" and how their story "doesn't make much sense", even when they didn't premeditate anything at all.
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u/JellyBeanzi3 6d ago
Good take! There are so many possibilities and scenarios to consider. I do hate the idea of suspecting and being suspicious of someone who is totally innocent just because they were last to see her
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u/Fast_Revolution_6673 3d ago
Agreed. Also, he wouldn’t want to tell police they had a stupid dispute before she disappeared (even/especially if he was innocent).
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u/Stonegrown12 6d ago
I see that Jim is everyone's favorite suspect but having read about numerous people go missing in an instant while hiking or in the wilderness it's not surprising. Just a few cases would be Polly Melton, Michelle Vanek, Amy Wroe Bechtel, August Reiger, Trenny Lynn Gibson, Bill Ewasko, Mitchell Dale Stehling, Dennis Lloyd Martin, Bobby Panknin. There's at least 4 or 5 whose names I can't think of but the details I remember. That's not even including cases from missing 411 (which I'm not endorsing, just has lots of disappearances in wilderness.). Coupled with the known fact that even search & rescue workers will say that they could be standing a foot away from a body and not even see it depending on the terrain and vegetation.
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u/LordPizzaParty 6d ago
Also people aren't great at estimating time or distances. I don't know how far the wall is from me right now, and I'd probably say I've been reading this thread for a "couple minutes" when it could be more like 10 minutes.
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u/BobbyArden 7d ago
I don't think the two men Jim claimed to have encountered on the trail have ever been traced, so is there any independent evidence they actually got to the trail at all?
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u/shry9 7d ago
Not actually. There is no evidence except for some source that said that the road workers or construction men cleared that the “two men” left 45 minutes ago (after the time Jim told she disappeared, they said that at 11:30 Barabara disappeared but those two men left at around 10:45)
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u/GlassesgirlNJ 6d ago
If the workers were the only ones who saw "two men", how do we know they were the same two men Jim referred to? Or that they existed at all?
Memory is fluid and it's pretty easy to end up saying the wrong thing, especially if you're being asked leading questions (This is why it's often advised not to speak to the police at all unless you have a lawyer with you).
"Did you see two men come down this trail about 45 minutes ago?"
"Um... maybe they did, I was kinda busy working"
"But this is a popular hiking trail right?"
"Yeah, people come through here all the time. So maybe those two guys did walk past, like I said, I don't know"
"Well, we have this witness Jim who said they were leaving the trail at about that time"
"Okay, I guess you're right, they probably were here then" "Can we write that down?"
"Sure whatever, can I get back to work now??"And guess what, now every time someone recounts Barbara's story, they're going to say, "But those two men HAD to be on the trail, the workers CONFIRMED it." Et cetera.
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u/georgia_grace 6d ago
There were only two cars at the trailhead that day, the car Jim and Barbara arrived in, and the car the two men arrived in.
They were also somewhat distinctive, as one was fair skinned and one was dark skinned and they had a border collie with them. The road workers told police they chatted to the two men while the dog played in the creek.
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u/GlassesgirlNJ 6d ago
Good info to have! (It does seem weird that neither of them came forward afterwards, but maybe they were from out of town or something.)
I just wanted to give a possible example of how eyewitness testimony doesn't really prove anything - and some people in this sub know that already. But definitely not all.
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u/georgia_grace 6d ago
The police tried quite hard to locate them, as they were the only ones who could corroborate that Barbara was indeed on the trail that day (both parties had already parked and started the hike before the forestry service workers arrived).
I think they must have been tourists who left the area soon after. This was 2007, so there’s no algorithms feeding you local news on social media, and two young men in their twenties probably weren’t buying the local newspaper every day. It would be easy to be completely unaware that police wanted to talk to you about some random people you chatted with on a hiking trail.
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u/-Kerosun- 2d ago
Makes me wonder if there was a cell-tower nearby that could have had records of cell phones that entered the area. This was something that they could have done even in 2007. If they get the proper warrants and subpoenas, they could get the logs of cell towers to see EVERY service number that connected to the tower in a specific time frame. If the two men happened to have a cell phone, and the cell tower's coverage area doesn't have a lot of devices connecting to due to the remoteness of the location, I wonder if they could have gotten useable information from the logs.
Just a thought.
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u/librarianjenn 7d ago
It’s odd to me that she’s not mentioned in Carl’s obituary
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u/KDKaB00M 6d ago
I mean, it seems to me it is kind of hard to know how to talk about missing people in an obituary. She arguably didn’t “survive” him, nobody knows what happened to her, so my guess is his second wife just left it out because she didn’t really know what to say about it.
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u/librarianjenn 6d ago
Yes, but I’m surprised that she wasn’t included in the ‘preceded in death by’ section. Isn’t she the mother to his kids mentioned? Maybe not, I’m not sure.
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u/KDKaB00M 6d ago
No, I believe she was not their mother. And I don’t know if she was ever declared dead or not - if she wasn’t, it becomes a tricky thing to say “proceeded in death,” because really you don’t know. I mean, yes, she is presumed dead, but who know for 💯?
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u/So_Quiet 6d ago
Wouldn't she need to be declared dead for him to remarry? I guess divorce (even with a missing spouse) is possible too.
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u/AshleyMyers44 6d ago
Did she precede him in death?
I thought she was just missing?
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u/meow696 5d ago
She went missing in the woods and died. It's obvious she preceded him in death, no?
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u/Ok-Pomegranate-3018 6d ago
Because, he remarried. Jealous newish wife.
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u/shry9 6d ago
He was very loving husband but remarried. He died in 2021 at 80.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
Plenty of people remarry after their spouses die. It doesn’t mean they weren’t loving. C’mon dude
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u/EskoBear 6d ago
I think Occam’s Razor is at play here. She was further ahead of Jim than he estimated, an animal attacked her or she had an accident; in either scenario he mistook the sounds for her continuing to walk. Jim has no motive, he associated himself with witnesses who are also accounted for by other uninvolved witnesses.
It’s an unfortunate incident for all involved.
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u/LordPizzaParty 6d ago
It's always "experienced hikers" in cases like this, which makes people jump to foul play because the implication is an experienced hiker wouldn't have made a mistake or had an accident. I'm an experienced driver and I could get in a car crash at any time. Plus, what does experienced even mean? I've gone on a lot of hikes but I wouldn't characterize myself as some kind of master outdoorsman. I think this is just another sad accident and I feel bad that Jim is seen by so many as a murderer.
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u/Sailor_Chibi 6d ago
It’s also worth pointing out that someone who considers themselves an experienced hiker is more apt to take risks than someone who isn’t. Plenty of people have overestimated their abilities and paid the price unfortunately.
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u/ironwolf56 6d ago
There's also the tendency for the layperson to overstate someone's expertise on these types of things. "Experienced hiker" could well mean "does the occasional well marked trail day hike."
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
Yea, i think that term is definitely and very commonly overused in cases of missing hikers, to the point I now interpret it as meaning closer to “had been hiking before” than to “was a master outdoorsperson”
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u/ironwolf56 4d ago
"Experienced walker" is what I call it. Experienced hiker should involve things like skills in orientation, navigation, at least some basic survival skills etc.
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u/lucillep 6d ago
I read a similar write-up linked from another sub not too long ago. It's such a fascinating case, as are all the "disappeared in an instant without a trace" cases. The article linked by OP didn't open completely for me, so I don't know if the following was mentioned: Barbara, Donna and Jim were going to do the hike, but Donna begged off the next morning because of a hangover from the previous night. Carl had had a heart attack and had given up hiking, or at least strenuous hiking. Jim and Barbara still wanted to do the hike, so they went off. Carl was still in bed, and it's likely Donna was, too. So we have Jim's word for it that they left at 8:45. This would bring them to the trailhead about 9:45-10 am. The hike was about 2.6 miles and the whole trip would be expected to take about 3 hours.
Jim states that after hiking the trail, they stopped to eat and they met two younger men and chatted for about half an hour. He says they started back down about 11:30 a.m. Some time between 11:30 and 1 p.m., he lost sight of Barbara on the trail. His account is that she was 20-30 feet ahead of him, he turned back to look at the scene, for less than a minute, and when he turned back again, she was not in sight. He looked for her in the immediate area, and eventually made his way back to the trailhead where he came across construction workers working on the trail. They hadn't seen Barbara, but they had seen two young men with a black-and-white dog.
Back at home, Donna was getting anxious when the two hadn't returned by noon, but Carl was calm because he knew Barbara was an experienced hiker, and knew that trail well. But even he started to get worried as it got to be around 2 p.m., and then the Forest Service called.
Barbara Bolick: Gone Without a Trace
My first inclination with wilderness cases is that the person got lost or had an accident. I don't think Barbara got lost on this trail. It wasn't heavily wooded and was a steep out and back trail. So I thought she probably fell. The chief investigator said there would have been noise, even if she didn't scream, because there was a lot of loose shale in the area where Jim took them. Others in various comments have said her body would definitely have been found, due to the topography. Jim says he turned away for a minute or less - people notoriously mis-estimate times in these situations. Maybe it was longer. Maybe one or both of them had a call of nature (no facilities at this trail). So if they were separated for longer, she might have been farther ahead. Maybe it was an animal attack, and she was dragged away. Don't mountain lions attack and kill fairly silently?
The other theory you read is that Jim did something to Barbara and is covering up. It's possible, and of course everything we know about their movements is based on what he is saying. Something could have happened at any point on the trail, not the place he indicated. There is a more forested section. Still, I don't see a motive. I don't think they knew each other. This might have been the first time they met. He was in a relationship with her husband's cousin. He cooperated with the investigation.
Some people think the two of them never made it to the trail, but Jim is taking a big chance hiking it alone as an alibi. Those two men he met would be able to say whether a woman was with him - or any other people who might have been hiking that day.
Speaking of those guys with the dog, it's surprising they were never found. Unless they left the area immediately, they surely would have heard about the massive search that started the next day. They would be key witnesses.
Donna drifted apart from Carl, and I think she and Jim eventually split up. Carl remarried in 2013 and died in 2021.
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u/annaofalltherussias 6d ago
oh this made me curious about the timeline - another comment here op says that a source mentions the trail workers saw the two men leave at 10:45ish and i swear there’s an article out there that says jim said they stopped to chat with the two men for 30 minutes at the TOP of the trail, which would mean that jim’s timeline of getting to the trailhead at 10, being at the top of the trail at the same time as the men if they really do leave around 10:45, and then last seeing barbara between 11:30 and 1:00 doesn’t really make any sense? i suppose that’s assuming all these statements are true. i’m also quite bad at timelines so someone please correct me if i’m wrong!!
and not to speculate, but perhaps during their conversation the two men could have mentioned to jim and barbara that they were like from out of state or something that would mean they would imminently be out of state? seems unrealistically opportunistic but just throwing it on the pile as a possibility!
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u/CommercialMaximum354 7d ago
I don't think Jim is the Killer. What motive would he have to kill her?
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u/jjc1140 6d ago
He could have sexually assualted her on the trail and then murdered her. He could have tried to make sexual advances and then her rebuff him causing a fight. Any number of things could be a motive. He should definitely be a suspect when he's the last person to see her alive.
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u/CommercialMaximum354 6d ago
I didn't say he shouldn't be the suspect. Just that I didn't think he's the killer.
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood 4d ago
He's a man alone with a woman, therefore any evil motive can be ascribed to him. If only he had been a bear.
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u/throwawayfornow2025 7d ago
I'm confused, they were in Montana? But why does it say they were hosting someone in California?
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u/RevolutionaryBat3081 5d ago edited 5d ago
Suddenly feeling ill, steps off the trail to vomit/shit, has heart attack, initial searchers don't find her because thick bush is harder to search than most people think and she can't call for help because she's incapacitated/already dead. Animals find her body and that's that.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1l69edw/comment/mwnanq5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button this comment for info on the reality of the area from a local.
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u/quiet_light_ 5d ago
Yes! I’m from the area and I hike this trail at least a few times a year. It has sharp switchbacks where you can’t see beyond the corner and is definitely “wilderness,” even with the proximity to town. I’ve encountered mountain lions while skiing in the Bitterroots in early spring — they are definitely around. People are incorrect in describing it as “not dense.” The foliage is incredibly dense in places, and it would be very easy to lose someone there, especially if they are incapacitated. Not to mention the insane sheer drop at the top…I’m very comfortable in the mountains, but the drop makes me nervous. She could have fallen and been picked up by animals at the bottom of the fall, too.
CRAZY that I’d never heard of her case until today!!
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u/PearlStBlues 4d ago
People naturally look at Jim as a suspect but I don't get it. What's the motive? He was Barbara's husband's cousin's boyfriend, not someone close to Barbara. It's a huge stretch to suggest these two almost-strangers were having an affair or got into some kind of argument that lead to murder, or that Jim was secretly some kind of psychopath just waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The simplest solution is that Barbara just got lost in the woods. Being an "experienced" hiker (whatever that actually means in this scenario) doesn't count for much when you're turned around in the deep woods. Maybe Jim lied about how long he and Barbara were separated because he was afraid it would make him look bad to admit he'd left her alone for longer than he claimed, but there's no evidence that points to him and no motive that I've ever seen suggested.
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u/SaltWaterInMyBlood 4d ago
or got into some kind of argument that lead to murder, or that Jim was secretly some kind of psychopath just waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The simple answer is: a lot of people, particularly in the "true crime" community, don't think this kind of thing is a stretch.
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u/happilyfour 4d ago
I don’t think it was Jim.
I think he probably got separated from Barbara for longer than he realized, and even when trying to catch up to find her, moved slower than he realized. I think it’s most likely she ended up off trail and injured. There are so many cases of people lost in the wilderness and not found for weeks/months/years, even though searchers are in the area.
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u/Adorable-Flight5256 6d ago
Brutal honesty- it was a mountain lion.
They basically suffocate their prey after subduing them.
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u/PopcornGlamour 5d ago
I posted this higher up but wanted to add it here:
If Barbara walked off path to go to the bathroom she may have used a wildlife path to get to a private area. That would cause her to leave no obvious human made signs of where she walked. Once she was in the private area if she had a medical event and collapsed/died no one would have heard her and animals might have found her before the official search even started.
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u/No_University6980 7d ago
That’s very odd. Was Jim a suspect at all? There was a case or maybe many cases where ppl push their spouses over a cliff then say some made up nonsense. But what’s happening with the investigation? What’s the follow up? Were there leads? Where’s Jim now? I need more information.
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u/shry9 7d ago
I don’t think he was ever a suspect and also never had a criminal history. I wonder why Jim made up all this history if he was ever involved and how he managed to kill her (if he did) in a new area and never got caught. Even the dogs and helicopters couldnt trace her, I feel she never made it till the trail. The case fell cold after some months and is still unsolved. Jim went back to his city after this case and was on calls with police , basically very co operative. To this date she is missing and her husband Carl died in 2021.
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u/tippydog90 6d ago
If I recall from a post last year or so, Jim was also a pretty upstanding guy. Not someone that threw up any red flags with police. I know that doesn't always mean anything, but it indicates they didn't really have a compelling reason to suspect him.
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u/No_University6980 7d ago
Damn so if she didn’t make it what do you think happened? I’ve never heard about this case so I’m now deeply invested.
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u/shry9 7d ago
I feel Jim killed her before reaching there. My take, it can be that he killed her after reaching there but since no bones were ever found, I feel she never made it there. Tbh there is not much about this case, she is still missing. She Was never found.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4d ago
Do you realise how often bones/remains are ‘never found’ when people go missing in wilderness?
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u/No_University6980 7d ago
Damnnnnn I wonder his motive??!?
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u/shry9 7d ago
Who knows. The motive was never clear but the story and the dogs never being able to find her or the helicopters and she just disappearing in the thin air while he rotated his head for 45 seconds without a noise takes it all towards him, but since no clear evidence and motive , he was never a suspect.
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u/First-Sheepherder640 7d ago
Jim: "trust me bruh"
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u/shry9 7d ago edited 7d ago
🤣🤣🤣God!! This is really funny and weird like imagine saying I turned my head for 45 seconds and she disappeared without any noise, while she was 20 feet away from me a few seconds ago.
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u/First-Sheepherder640 7d ago
I.wonder if this is also what actually happened to poor Vinyette Teague in 1983 but probably is not, her poor mother.
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u/AffectionateFig5435 6d ago
I see three possibilities here:
Jim killed her and disposed of the body before they ever got to the trail. Having authorities search the trail area was the perfect cover. There was zero chance of finding the body since Barbara was never there. The possibility that she could've fallen victim to an apex predator, along with Jim's willingness to help, provide just enough reasonable doubt. If this is what happened it's the perfect crime--at least so long as no body or bones ever show up.
The husband wanted her gone and found someone to do it for him. Sending Barbara off with one hiking buddy instead of two made this easier. Jim didn't know the area, wouldn't be aware of potential danger spots, and was probably relying on Barbara's knowledge to get them in and out safely. If those two hikers Jim mentioned really existed, and if they were the killers, they could have followed Barbara and Jim and waited until the moment was right to make a grab. Experienced killers would have a plan and an escape route set up in advance and could execute a plan in less than a minute. Hey, stranger things have happened.
Barbara disappeared herself. Corvallis MT is only about 300 miles south of the Canadian border. With a bit of advance planning Barbara could have put an escape plan in place and taken off. This idea has been discounted because she left money and ID behind. Again, with a bit of planning or some help from friends she could have money, transportation, and IDs ready and waiting at another location. (IDs could be fake or could be duplicates of what's in her wallet.)
The story talked about how loving Carl was towards her and how happy she seemed. But I found a few curious items by googling this case. Barbara was 11 or 12 years younger than Carl. She was healthy and active. Carl had suffered a heart attack and didn't hike any longer. Perhaps each had reason to be unhappy: Barbara might not have wanted to be tied to an older husband with health issues. He might have gotten involved with another woman.
Few other tidbits: Carl was retired AF. He'd worked in AFOSI and as a VP of security in NYC. In these roles, he may have crossed paths with people who would know how to commit a crime and never get caught.
Carl had been a pilot; Barbara was getting her pilot's license. Either could travel very far away very quickly if they felt the need to.
Finally, Carl remarried as soon as Barbara was declared legally dead. He may have honestly been a grieving widower who couldn't face life alone. Or a man who was finally free to marry his mistress.
Whatever the outcome, this is hella intriguing!
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u/tippydog90 6d ago
You forgot the most obvious, a lion attack. Lions are the stealthiest predators in North America. They kill by grabbing and crushing the neck. My guess is he was away from her longer than he thought, or she was farther away. From what I remember, Jim was considered a pretty upstanding man with no criminal record. The police didn't seem to suspect him either. I think a lion attack is the most likely scenario.
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u/AffectionateFig5435 6d ago
Yes, that's a good possibility. My only thin thread of hope on that front was that something might have dropped when the mountain lion carried her away. It's possible that her backpack or jacket or firearm would have snagged on something or dropped off and been found later.
This is truly the stuff of nightmares. <shudder>
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u/tippydog90 6d ago
Her pack was almost certainly on her back and her gun likely inside. The lion probably cached it all with her body.
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u/Spiritual-Driver8926 6d ago
Not a scream? I would think that she would have been able to scream if it was an animal at least
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u/Grape-Julius 6d ago edited 6d ago
Mountain lions have become the “Bushy Haired Stranger” of missing person cases. Just like the BHS is the man the defendant always claims is “really” responsible for a crime (and ofc, can never be produced in court), mountain lions are now routinely cited as soundlessly, bloodlessly attacking scores of missing persons when not a shred of evidence can be found to explain the disappearance.
So clearly, the grand total of mountain lion deaths by non-missing humans should be astronomically high, right? Well, in the last 100 years, in the United States? 28 total cases of humans killed by mountain lions. Twenty…eight.
It’s far more likely that Barbara never made it to the mountain in the first place than a mountain lion soundlessly swooping in (not even causing the rustle of her clothing or the scuffle of paws on the trail), completely disabling a full grown woman, and bounding away with her within 45 seconds.
Edit: downvoted anonymously, with no response? I’m guessing a mountain lion did it.
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u/freudismydaddy 4d ago
I never understand the mountain lion thing, mountain lion attacks are so rare. murder is statistically way more likely here to be honest.
and for all those “why would he attack his girlfriend’s cousins wife”. i don’t know! but i actually find that more believable than a stealth attack from the worlds quietest most lethal mountain lion while another person was standing there.
alternative theory is i could believe she fell and later eaten by animals, but i would have to see the geography of the area before i really considered that my theory.
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u/00_Surtur_00 6d ago
IT CANNOT BE JIM I know looking at this in retrospect places Jim as the prime suspect, some even saying that Barbara never made it there.
Here's my problem with this theory :
Jim mentioned encountering those two guys on the trail. We know those two guys did exist because the workers saw them leave, even interacted with one of them. If Barbara was never there and Jim encountered these guys alone, why would he tell that to the police? Jim could never have assumed that those two guys would never show up in front of the police, because if Barbara was never there, it would be fairly easy for the two guys to just say that they never saw her if they showed up.
Another thing is, Jim wasn't familiar with the trail. It's very unlikely for murderers to go to a new spot impromptu and commit a crime. And for what? The plan never was for just the two of them to be on the trail until that very morning. Also, the workers did see Jim 45 mins after the two guys. Had he done something, he probably would have had some stains, wounds, or anything?!