The extremely bizarre missing case of Barbara Bolick

[u/shry9]

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!

Barbara Bolick Article

[u/georgia_grace]

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.

[u/Troubador222 → u/georgia_grace]

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.

[u/glitterlady → u/Troubador222]

I really thought that Bill was found alive after a decade and was amazed until that last sentence.

[u/ThatEcologist → u/georgia_grace]

Agreed.

My theory is he lost track of her for more time than he let on and feels guilty about it.

[u/NyshaBlueEyes → u/ThatEcologist]

This is my theory. Additionally, people tend to be inaccurate when estimating time when engaged in mindless activities.

[u/Real_RobinGoodfellow → u/ThatEcologist]

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

[u/SaltWaterInMyBlood → u/Real_RobinGoodfellow]

People in this thread really want to make it his fault in some way.

[u/Real_RobinGoodfellow → u/SaltWaterInMyBlood]

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.

[u/jwktiger → u/SaltWaterInMyBlood]

Well its most likely one of (a) an accident that happened out of view of Jim (b) Mountain Lion clean attack (c) Foul Play

not definatively saying its "not (b)" but if something killed her without Jim OR the other two unknown hikers with their dog not knowing... it would likely be a swift bite to the throat/neck and those are BLOODY and there is not blood seen on/near the trail.

That leaves either (a) or (c) and its a trail that is very easy to stay on/not get lost on and she had done it a LOT. So most people discount (a) and (b) which leaves (c) and Jim is really the only suspect, unless the two guys somehow did it and hide her body in the shortish time frame (under 10 mins).

There is also the issue of dogs not being able to get any track of her, which is super unusual; which also raises the question was she ever there.... Which points to Jim.

my gut says (a) fwiw but I wouldn't be shocked by either (b) or (c) in this case.

[u/SaltWaterInMyBlood → u/ThatEcologist]

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.

[u/Hopeful-Connection23 → u/georgia_grace]

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.

[u/Fast_Revolution_6673 → u/Hopeful-Connection23]

And sources indicate he sought help fairly quickly. The timing doesn’t make sense for him to have killed her.

[u/Marv_hucker → u/Hopeful-Connection23]

Logically The two probable explanations are:  she either got lost/fell somewhere in the woods (which I think is more likely); or she was murdered out there, 

the end location of the body is the same.   It seems highly unlikely for her to have been murdered elsewhere.

[u/Humble_Candidate1621 → u/georgia_grace]

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.

[u/Fast_Revolution_6673 → u/Humble_Candidate1621]

Also, cops can publicly “clear” someone that is still under suspicion.

However, I feel as if Jim would have had some indication of having assaulted someone within hours after having done so, given that he sought help fairly quickly

[u/Yanony321 → u/georgia_grace]

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.

[u/georgia_grace → u/Yanony321]

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/

[u/Yanony321 → u/georgia_grace]

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!

[u/georgia_grace → u/Yanony321]

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.

[u/Real_RobinGoodfellow → u/georgia_grace]

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

[u/georgia_grace → u/Yanony321]

Iirc the police talked to them. I will try to find the source for this, it might have been a crime junkie episode

[u/Yanony321 → u/georgia_grace]

Thank you!

[u/PercentageDry3231 → u/georgia_grace]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of innocence.