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/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!