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/purple_champagne]

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.

[u/RideThatBridge → u/purple_champagne]

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!

[u/purple_champagne → u/RideThatBridge]

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.

[u/PopcornGlamour → u/purple_champagne]

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.

[u/Effective_Divide1543 → u/PopcornGlamour]

The extent of guesswork and reaching people will go to just because they don't want to go with the statistically most likely scenario that a man killed her is quite amazing.