On an August day in 2012, two teenage best friends, nineteen-year-old Iris Jansen and her closest companion Quinn Walsh, set out on what was supposed to be a three-day backpacking adventure through the Colorado wilderness. Both were seasoned hikers who had grown up exploring the rugged trails of the Rockies, and their families trusted their abilities to handle the unpredictable backcountry.

To ease her mother’s concerns, Iris carried a satellite messenger, a device capable of tracking their movements and signaling for help even in remote areas. It was meant to be the perfect safeguard, a compromise between independence and parental peace of mind. Yet by the morning of August 16th, the device had gone silent. The girls were due home the night before, but no call ever came. Phones rang endlessly to voicemail, and when Iris’s mother Lena checked the satellite portal, she found the last signal had been sent from their campsite two days earlier. No movement, no check-ins, no SOS—just an ominous silence. Panic set in, missing persons reports were filed, and search and rescue teams launched an urgent operation.

Helicopters scanned the skies, dogs searched the forest floor, and volunteers flooded the mountains in hopes of finding some trace of the missing girls. By late Thursday, searchers located their campsite, and the scene they found only deepened the mystery. The tent was zipped shut, sleeping bags neatly rolled, food supplies organized, and the satellite device sat powered on in plain sight. There were no signs of struggle, no torn clothing, no blood, and no indication of an animal attack. Their packs were ready to go, as if they had planned to continue their hike, yet everything essential for survival had been abandoned. Investigators discovered a guidebook on alpine flora inside the tent, with several pages marked, including descriptions of rare wildflowers blooming nearby.

The theory emerged that the girls may have wandered off on a short excursion, intending to return quickly, but if that were the case, why had they never come back? And why had the search turned up no footprints, no dropped gear, not even a trace of their movements? Weeks of searching produced nothing. Every ridge, ravine, and valley was combed, but the wilderness offered no answers. A reported sighting of two distressed young women in a nearby town briefly gave hope, but it quickly unraveled as a false lead. By late September, snow threatened the high country and the official search was suspended. The case went cold, leaving families in despair. Lena refused to give up.

She hired trackers, funded private searches, and walked the trails herself year after year. Each spring, when the snow melted, she returned to the mountains, hoping that this time she would uncover the truth. Instead, the silence remained unbroken, and the girls’ disappearance became a haunting local legend, a warning about how unforgiving the wilderness could be. Then, in September 2017, five years after the girls vanished, fate delivered an answer. A local hunter named Haskell Bower and his dog Duke ventured deep into remote woods while tracking elk. When Duke began digging at the roots of a fallen tree, Bower expected animal remains, but instead unearthed a human hip bone.

More bones appeared nearby—vertebrae, ribs, and one vertebra pierced by a rusted barbed arrowhead. The arrowhead was primitive, unlike modern hunting tools, and immediately suggested foul play. Forensic teams collected the remains, which were too degraded for easy identification, but a second sweep turned up fragments of a skull and jawbone. Dental records confirmed the bones belonged to Quinn Walsh. The revelation shattered all lingering hopes. Quinn had not died of exposure or accident—she had been murdered, shot in the back with a frontier-style arrow and buried in a shallow grave miles from the campsite. But there was no sign of Iris. The arrowhead became the focal point of the investigation.

Experts concluded it was hand-forged, not commercially manufactured, pointing to someone with specialized skills, possibly a survivalist, hobbyist, or historical reenactor. Detective Rhys Garrison, a veteran of cold cases, took over the investigation and zeroed in on reclusive groups in Colorado’s backcountry known for forging primitive weapons. Suspicion quickly fell on a notorious survivalist compound where extremists with a history of poaching and weapon-making had once been raided in 2010. Dozens of handmade arrows matching the murder weapon had been confiscated at the time. Among the suspects was Orson Halloway, an expert tracker tied to the area where Quinn’s remains were found.

A raid in 2018 uncovered more matching arrows, but Halloway claimed he was being framed, alleging that the arrow used in Quinn’s murder had been among those seized years earlier and never returned. An audit confirmed his claim—the confiscated arrows had been checked out of evidence storage in July 2012, just weeks before the girls disappeared, by none other than park ranger Kendrick Dillard, a man who had even joined the original search. Surveillance later showed Dillard watching Iris and her mother at the visitor center before their hike. When confronted, Dillard broke down, and a search of his property revealed a locked, soundproofed cellar beneath his workshop containing restraints, bedding, and signs of captivity. Cadaver dogs soon led investigators to a shallow grave behind his home, where the remains of Iris Jansen were uncovered.

Forensic analysis revealed she had survived for years, dying sometime in late 2016 or early 2017, nearly four years after she was taken. The truth was horrifying: Dillard had stalked the girls, ambushed them, killed Quinn with a stolen arrow to cast suspicion on survivalists, and abducted Iris, holding her captive until her eventual death. The evidence was overwhelming, and Dillard was convicted of murder, kidnapping, and related crimes, sentenced to life without parole. For the families, the verdict brought no peace, only the cruel knowledge of what their daughters had endured. What began as a story of adventure ended in unthinkable tragedy, exposing the darkness that can hide in positions of trust and authority. The case of Iris and Quinn remains a chilling reminder that danger does not always come from the wilderness itself, but sometimes from the monsters hiding in plain sight.