Pod Insights Park Predators The Stranger About this episode When a young woman witnesses the cold-blooded execution of her hiking companion on the Appalachian Trail and lives to tell the tale, her chilling story is almost too much for law enforcement in 1974 to believe. Then, as the pieces start to come together, police are faced with a human predator whose criminal career is the stuff of nightmares.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambrà. And the story I have for you today is one that's taken me the better part of six months to research and pull together. It's one of the first documented murders on the Appalachian Trail, but it's also a story of incredible survival. The killing of Joel Poulsen in 1974 at the Low Gap Shelter is a case that many bloggers and true crime content creators have covered over the years. But never like this. Because today's episode is the first time you'll be hearing the full story. From the perspective of the lone survivor, who was just 17 years old when she witnessed the brutal execution of her hiking companion, and then was taken hostage by the perpetrator.
0:45 Speaker 00 Earl Swift wrote a great article about this story for Outside Magazine in 2018. And it's a piece of source material I found super helpful in writing this episode. But today is the first time anyone is getting this story in-depth in audio format. To set the scene a little bit, the Low Gap area of the AT where this crime occurred is in White County, Georgia, about 30 miles north of the city of Cleveland, Georgia, not too far from the Georgia-North Carolina border. Back in 1974, the AT didn't have the documented track record of murders that we know of today. We're talking about a time when many people hitchhiked as a regular means of transportation, and there were no smartphones, and GPS wasn't a thing.
1:28 Speaker 00 In general, the communication between law enforcement agencies in different states wasn't as interconnected as it is today.
1:36 Speaker 00 Something I hope each and every one of you takes away from this episode is that stranger danger is very real. It's a practice we should all live by, especially whenever we're in the woods. It's not just a saying that we teach to young children and teenagers. It's a mantra adults should keep in mind, too. Because the truth is, strangers can be dangerous. Sometimes even deadly. This is Park Predators.
2:44 Speaker 00 Shortly after 8:30 PM on Friday, May 10, 1974, staff at the Columbia Police Department in South Carolina got a phone call from a teenage girl who had a very bizarre story to report. She told officers her name was Margaret Harret, and she wanted them to know that a murder had occurred on the Appalachian Trail several days earlier, and she was a witness. Somewhat unsure of whether or not they could believe her, the police sent an officer to pick Margaret up from the local bus station where she was calling from, and brought her back to the police station so they could get a few more details from her. When she arrived, officers put her in a holding room and began asking her questions. According to police reports, she told investigators that she'd been hiking on the AT
3:29 Speaker 00 with a 26-year-old friend of hers named Joel Poulsen, when a man she only knew as Ralph had suddenly shot Joel while the three of them were at Low Gap Shelter. She claimed the crime had occurred on the morning of Thursday, May 9, and that Ralph had tied her to a tree for a period of time, before eventually forcing her at gunpoint to hike through the woods with him. She told police that Ralph had also made her stay overnight with him at a motel in Helen, Georgia, before eventually hitchhiking to the city of Cornelia, where Margaret said Ralph then let her go at a local bus station. After that, he boarded a bus to Atlanta, and she'd taken a bus to Columbia, where she attended college. She said as soon as she arrived, she used a payphone at the bus station
4:12 Speaker 00 to call her family members, and then police. Initially, law enforcement wasn't sure what to think of Margaret's unbelievable story. Police reports state that at that time, officers considered her a possible suspect in the crime she'd just told them about. Margaret and her sister Polly told me that it wasn't necessarily surprising to Margaret at that time that authorities thought she was lying. In May 1974, she had a bit of a hippie look, wild curly hair, wore army shorts, and just had an alternative appearance. She was into countercultural things, and that kind of automatically made police wonder if her story was credible. I'm sure they suspected she was under the influence of something, possibly, which, just
4:56 Speaker 00 for clarity, she wasn't. Anyway, to do their due diligence, around 11:15 PM, a captain with Columbia PD contacted the White County Sheriff's Office in Georgia, who in turn notified the Georgia Game and Fish Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to relay that they needed to send personnel out to the low-gap shelter area of the Appalachian Trail to look for a young man's body. When units arrived at that area shortly after midnight, which was technically Saturday, May 11th, they followed instructions from the investigator with Columbia PD who'd interviewed Margaret on where to go, and sure enough, within a few minutes of being on scene, they found a young man deceased in the woods.
5:39 Speaker 00 He was laying face down next to a fallen tree not far from the designated shelter. He'd been covered with leaves and other forest debris, and had a plastic bag tied around his head with a string. He had the rough height and weight dimensions as Joel, but authorities couldn't make a positive ID based only on what was in front of them. Before touching or moving the body, investigators photographed the victim, and once those initial photos of the scene were taken, investigators removed the forest debris and noted that he was dressed in a pair of green shorts, brown hiking boots, gray flannel socks, an undershirt, and a button-down blue flannel shirt that was unbuttoned. Interestingly, his shorts had been rolled down over his knees, exposing his backside,
6:23 Speaker 00 and his flannel shirt and undershirt were pushed up all the way to his shoulders. After getting plenty of photos, a GBI agent cut the string that was holding the plastic bag around the victim's head and removed it. Investigators then saw that the dead man had thick, long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and looked to be about 26 years old. The GBI agent on scene surmised that the young man's killer had likely tried to use the bag to keep blood contained, but it was unclear from just looking at him how exactly he died. It was obvious that something violent had happened to his head, but authorities couldn't figure out what. After doing their initial processing of the scene, investigators removed the young
7:05 Speaker 00 man's body from the woods and took him to an ambulance, which transported him to a funeral home in the nearby city of Cleveland. There was no ID on the victim when he was found, so authorities couldn't say for sure at that moment whether or not it was Joel. However, Margaret had told officers in Columbia that whoever went to look for Joel wouldn't find his ID on him because her captor had taken it off his body after the murder, along with Joel's backpack, his hiking gear, and some of his traveler's checks. So to try and get the victim's identity confirmed and learn more about how he died, the GBI asked a doctor from the state crime lab to travel to the funeral home in Cleveland to perform an autopsy. By 2:00 PM on that Saturday, the doctor started the exam and determined that the young man
7:50 Speaker 00 had been shot once in the left side of his head with a .38 caliber firearm. The bullet had entered slightly behind his left ear and lodged in the front right side of his head. There was evidence of insect activity and decomposition, which caused the doctor to conclude that the victim had most likely been dead for at least a few days. In addition to those details, the doctor also saw multiple linear scratches and scrapes across the victim's chest, abdomen, pelvis, and left thigh, which suggested he'd been dragged. Other evidence that suggested he'd been moved in the woods were that several buttons on his flannel shirt were missing, and there was forest debris underneath his shorts.
8:31 Speaker 00 There were also tears in some of his clothing, even more forest debris in his mouth, as well as stuck to his chest, face, torso, and head. In general, he looked like he'd been through hell after getting shot. Not long after the autopsy began, authorities got ahold of Joel's parents, and they were able to formally identify him as the victim.
8:53 Speaker 00 Back in Columbia, 17-year-old Margaret, who'd tried unsuccessfully at the bus station's payphone to get in touch with her parents and siblings, was still just chilling at the police station. It was the middle of the night when she dialed all those folks, but still, she knew that between her sister, her brothers, and mom or dad, someone should have answered their phone. That's just the type of family they were. Then she remembered, though, that everyone had taken a trip to the family's beach house that week because of a recent death in their family. So she asked officers to call that number instead. And right away, Margaret's sister Polly answered the phone and learned what was going on. Polly quickly put their dad on the phone, and he told the Columbia PD officers to believe whatever Margaret was telling them,
9:37 Speaker 00 because she was no liar. Not long after that, Margaret's older brother drove from the coast to pick her up at the police station and took her to his apartment in Columbia, because at the time, he was in law school there and lived in town. The following morning, a special agent with the GBI interviewed an employee from the bus station in Cornelia, Georgia, that Margaret claimed she and Joel's killer had caught separate buses from on the afternoon of May 10. That operator verified that he'd sold bus passes to a young woman matching Margaret's description and a man who looked to be between 20 and 30 years old. He explained that the pair used cash traveler's checks to purchase their tickets, and in his opinion, neither seemed to be upset or under duress while they were in the station.
10:21 Speaker 00 That info likely struck investigators as surprising, because Margaret behaving so calmly didn't seem to align with her being an unwilling hostage. So to vet her story a little more, they asked her to come back to the police station and take a polygraph. According to police reports, that examination took place on the afternoon of Monday, May 13, about two days after Joel's body was found. After roughly an hour of questioning, the results came back and indicated that Margaret was being 100% truthful. It was really at that point investigators eliminated her as a suspect and began to view her as more of an asset than potentially being involved.
11:03 Speaker 00 Around that same time, news of Joel's murder was picked up by area newspapers. Margaret's name wasn't publicized in initial articles, but most of the important circumstances of the crime were, including the fact that she'd been tied to a tree and held captive, and Joel had been shot in the head, dragged through the woods, and left for dead. Some of the earliest reporting states that police believed Margaret had been so afraid of the man who'd abducted her that she'd only gone along with whatever he wanted just to survive. When I interviewed Margaret for this episode, she told me the same thing. Even though she was terrified, she'd somehow managed to have this almost otherworldly sense of calm come over her.
11:44 Speaker 00 In her statements to investigators back in 1974, she was very detailed and thorough about what had happened, starting with how she'd met Joel and ended up hiking with him. About 10 months before the crime, in the fall of 1973, Margaret began attending classes at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She'd originally planned to major in journalism, but pretty quickly lost interest in that field of study and began exploring what exactly she wanted to do with her life. At that time, she found community with people who were into spiritual meditation, natural foods, and the great outdoors. Her parents supported her financially as far as paying for her education, but to earn
12:26 Speaker 00 spending money, she got a job as a waitress at an Italian restaurant in the Five Points section of the city, which is an area that has a lot of bars, shops, and places to eat. One evening in March of 1974, with nearly two semesters of college under her belt, Margaret was waiting tables when Joel came in to eat at the place she worked. They chatted, and she realized he was about nine years older than her, but that didn't discourage her from getting to know him better. She was impressed with his fervor for adventure and future plans to hike the Appalachian Trail that summer, all 2,200 miles of it. They bumped into one another a few more times after that, often at the restaurant or at an alternative store in Five Points. Each time they saw one another, Joel encouraged Margaret to join him when he hiked the AT.
13:11 Speaker 00 But Margaret had reservations. She had never done anything like that before in her life and wasn't in shape for such an extensive trek. Eventually, though, she decided to just go for it because she didn't have any plans that summer and she'd already made up her mind that she wasn't going to return to USC in the fall for classes. Plus, there was just something about taking a risk and joining a kindred spirit like Joel that felt exciting to her. She told me that she liked being around Joel because he was doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing and taking a path less traveled. Even though news publications in 1974 labeled her and him as boyfriend and girlfriend, Margaret clarified in her interview with me that they weren't dating. She said there was absolutely nothing romantic going on between them.
13:56 Speaker 00 They were literally just friends. In fact, she'd only known him for about a month or two prior to his death. She described him as a very gentle, kind, and caring person. Not long before they set out on their hike, she invited him to meet her family in her hometown of Sumter, South Carolina, because she wanted her mom and dad to know who she was going to be with for the next three months. Something that's kind of funny, though, is that Margaret told me she sort of framed it to her parents that Joel was the leader of a larger group of people who were going to be hiking the AT. In reality, though, it was just going to be the two of them. But honestly, I can't even judge her for this because I might have totally done the same sort of thing when I was 17 if I felt like my parents were going to immediately say no
14:40 Speaker 00 if I didn't pitch something like this to them in the right way. Anyway, when she and Joel arrived in Sumter to meet her folks, Margaret's dad wasted no time in asking Joel to clear some brush behind his medical office. And Joel didn't hesitate to jump right in and get to work. After the hard labor was done, Margaret's family agreed to let Joel stay at her sister Polly's house and he happily slept on the kitchen floor in his sleeping bag with no complaints. Polly told me that was the only time she ever saw or interacted with Joel, but in just those few minutes, he left a lasting impression on her as being a sweet person. Margaret told me that in advance of their trip, Joel had patiently helped her decide what to bring and how to pack her backpack. He'd meticulously planned out their route, stops,
15:25 Speaker 00 and really took pride in being prepared. They covered a good amount of mileage during their first day on the trail and were both wide-eyed and loving every second of it. Margaret in particular couldn't get enough of the beautiful scenery. She told me that the freedom of being in nature and taking it all in was overwhelming, in a good way. On the afternoon of May 8th, they passed a group of hikers, one of whom was working with a chainsaw, who also appeared to work for the Forest Service, or might have been a ranger. They greeted those people with friendly smiles and then kept going. A few hours later, they hiked down to the low-gap shelter, which was a lean-to-style structure designed to house a few people overnight. As soon as they arrived, they saw a white guy sitting there, who looked to be in his 30s,
16:09 Speaker 00 with thinning hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and a mustache. Margaret said she and Joel said hello to the man, and he introduced himself as Ralph. As the trio chatted, Ralph mentioned he'd been staying at the shelter for a few days and was supposed to meet two friends there. Later that evening, while Margaret was washing up in a stream near the shelter, Joel came up next to her and expressed in a low voice that he was worried Ralph might be bad news. Joel said he'd noticed that Ralph didn't have a lot of hiking gear with him, just a leather jacket, blanket, and rucksack, which seemed kind of unusual for someone who'd been traveling in the woods for a few days. Joel told Margaret they should stay vigilant because Ralph might try to steal their stuff. Eventually, though,
16:54 Speaker 00 the three gathered around a campfire together and ate dinner. At one point, while Ralph was off gathering firewood, Joel had softened a bit and told Margaret that maybe the stranger with the meager hiking gear wasn't so bad after all. However, early the next morning, Margaret woke up to find that Joel had already packed most of his stuff and was ready to get moving. He told her he wanted to hike to the next mountain and they could eat breakfast there. She nodded in agreement and groggily started to get dressed. She watched Joel walk to wash up in the stream and make his way back toward one of the shelter's fire pits. As she laced up her boots in an area near the rear of the shelter, she suddenly stopped when she heard a loud sound ring out.
17:36 Speaker 00 Unsure of where the noise had come from, she peered out of the shelter and saw her friend crouched in an awkward position on the ground near the fire pit with his head resting on a rock. Before she could even process what was going on, Ralph jumped into the shelter with a revolver in his hand and ordered her to roll over. He then tied her hands up, marched her to a nearby tree where he blindfolded her, bound her feet and legs, and fastened her to the trunk. The whole time this was happening, Margaret kept asking what had happened to Joel and if he was dead, but Ralph responded that Joel would be fine, he was just hurt. Margaret didn't necessarily believe him, but she was in a state of shock at that point and was going along with whatever Ralph told her to try and stay alive.
18:19 Speaker 00 After tying her up, Ralph left and walked back in the direction of the shelter and was gone for what felt like a long time to Margaret. In reality, though, it was about 15 minutes later that Ralph returned to where he'd left Margaret and untied her. He then forced her to walk back to the shelter, and that's when she saw that Joel's body had been moved. It set in for her in that moment that her friend was likely dead. At various points, Ralph wavered back and forth on whether to leave Margaret tied up at the shelter or march her further into the woods and tie her to another tree and leave a note at the shelter so future hikers would know where to find her. He eventually went with the ladder and walked her deeper into the woods and tied her up next to a log. He left her some water and a hat that had belonged to Joel and some granola in her
19:04 Speaker 00 lap. He also set Joel's wristwatch on the log next to her. About 15 minutes passed before Ralph returned yet again and informed Margaret that he'd changed his mind and was actually going to take her with him because he was worried she would die. He remarked that he wasn't necessarily cool with that because he'd never killed a woman before. He promised to let her go home once they reached the next highway, and so Margaret complied for the next few hours as they hiked the AT, believing that she would get to go home if she stayed calm. As they hiked, they bumped into other travelers, some of whom were the Forest employees Margaret and Joel had bumped into the previous day. Oddly, those hikers didn't seem to pick up on the fact that Margaret was no longer hiking with Joel,
19:49 Speaker 00 but instead, a new guy who was hauling most of Joel's gear. Ralph and Margaret's verbal exchanges with these hikers were brief, and Margaret did her best to act normal, because Ralph had warned her beforehand that if she indicated to anyone that she was in trouble, he would kill her, and whoever they came in contact with. They continued walking and taking breaks for several more miles after that, until they got closer to where the trail met the highway. Margaret, still believing that's where Ralph was gonna let her go, was crushed when at the last minute, he told her he changed his mind yet again, and was actually going to make her stay with him overnight. From there, they hitchhiked to a nearby town and checked into a motel, and Margaret told me in her interview
20:31 Speaker 00 that she was convinced Ralph was gonna try and sexually assault her. But he never did. He didn't touch her. He stayed up watching a movie on TV, going through Joel's backpack, practicing Joel's signature to use his traveler's checks, and reassured Margaret that he was just gonna let her go after he got enough of a head start and supplies to go on the run. Eventually, Margaret managed to fall asleep, and the next morning, she and Ralph hitchhiked to the bus station in Cornelia. After they purchased their bus tickets, Margaret said she felt like an eternity passed before she watched Ralph get on his bus to Atlanta and leave. Right before he walked away, he told her that he wished he could have met her under different circumstances, because he sort of liked her,
21:16 Speaker 00 which felt extremely creepy to Margaret. It was only after she watched his bus pull out of the station and drive out of sight that she took a sigh of relief. She didn't immediately jump up and scream for help, though, because she said she was still in such a state of fear, she wasn't sure if she was really safe or not. Shortly before Ralph left, he'd warned her not to contact authorities, because he said if he arrived in Atlanta to a bunch of police waiting for him, he'd open fire and a lot of innocent people would be killed. By the time Margaret was alone, all she wanted to do was get back to her family in South Carolina. To this day, she has no recollection of the bus ride she took from Cornelia to Columbia. It's just a total blank in her memory.
22:00 Speaker 00 Fortunately for investigators, though, details she'd learned about Ralph and all the things he'd claimed about himself during their time they'd spent together were still very fresh in her mind. And authorities wanted to use that information to learn more about who exactly he was. According to police reports, during the many hours Ralph hiked with Margaret on the Appalachian Trail, he discussed everything from his taste in music to his alleged prior criminal history. He claimed he was unhoused, an escaped inmate, a thief, and a survivalist, all things that made 17-year-old Margaret believe he was a very dangerous person. Which, like, he was. He just shot and killed her friend. He was a bad dude. He'd mentioned to her that he'd lived up north and out west for most of his life, and that
22:44 Speaker 00 prior to coming to the southeast United States, had no issues surviving in the woods. However, after spending some time on the AT and realizing he was unfamiliar with the terrain, he found navigating what species of plants to eat more challenging than he'd initially thought. He repeatedly expressed to Margaret that he was desperate and had only killed Joel because he wanted his hiking gear and supplies. When Margaret provided her full statement to investigators that included all of this information, she described Ralph as "kind of short, with receding blondish hair, light eyes, horned-rimmed glasses, and a mustache." She said he was still likely carrying Joel's large green backpack, too. But without Ralph's last name, investigators found it difficult to track him down in Atlanta,
23:29 Speaker 00 or anywhere for that matter. Meanwhile, Joel's family held his funeral service at Magnolia Cemetery in his hometown of Hartsfield, South Carolina. Margaret didn't attend the ceremony, but thinks one or both of her parents might have. On May 14th, several days into the murder investigation, the Associated Press reported that as far as investigators were concerned, progress was stalled until authorities could learn more information about the man who'd called himself Ralph. Further searching at the crime scene had turned up a rucksack that had belonged to him, but nothing of value was inside of it. No ID, no personal papers, nothing. The next day, the state newspaper in Columbia ran a story that featured a composite sketch
24:11 Speaker 00 investigators developed based on the description of Ralph that Margaret provided. And thankfully, a day after that image went public, the GBI got a critical phone call.
24:27 Speaker 01 My name's Jack Wagner, host of Other World, a podcast featuring real people who experience something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained.
24:34 Speaker 02 I have no idea how I got there.
24:35 Speaker 03 I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks like this.
24:38 Speaker 04 It felt like electric stars on fire.
24:40 Speaker 01 I started Other World to take a grounded approach to the paranormal, help people tell their own stories, and encourage more to come forward. I certainly don't have the answers, but maybe one day we will. Join me as we explore our world's greatest mysteries. Listen to Other World now for free wherever you get your podcasts.
25:02 Speaker 00 According to police reports, shortly after 11:00 a.m. on May 16th, one week after Joel's murder, officers with the Atlanta Police Department received a call from a woman who claimed she and her boyfriend had run into a man in the city that looked a lot like the suspect sketch authorities in South Carolina had released. She claimed that the man had tried to exchange a pistol with her boyfriend and asked if he could get him some bullets. The tipster went one step further, though, and told APD where exactly in Atlanta this mystery guy was living, what he'd been wearing, and where his room was in the boarding house he was staying at. Two hours later, an agent with the GBI and the sheriff of White County, Georgia, showed up to the Atlanta Police Department's fugitive squad and joined local officers
25:47 Speaker 00 to execute a search on the suspect's room. When they arrived, the man wasn't inside, but they did find several items that they believed belonged to Joel Poulsen. A large green backpack that resembled his was there, along with a book that had Margaret's name in it, some camping equipment, a .38 caliber revolver with four rounds in the chamber, one empty round, and a bunch of maps of the Appalachian Trail. On one of the maps, someone had drawn an X over the area of the trail where Logue Gap Shelter was, so the general area where Joel had been killed. For several hours, authorities waited outside the boarding house for their suspect to come back, and around 5:45 PM, sure enough, he did. As soon as he got inside, investigators converged on the building and took him into custody.
26:32 Speaker 00 He was quickly identified from his driver's license as 31-year-old Ralph Howard Fox, a Michigan native who'd previously been incarcerated for breaking and entering, kidnapping, and escaping custody. He was wanted by law enforcement in Michigan for violating the conditions of his parole. When Ralph was arrested, he didn't put up much of a fight. He stayed pretty quiet when they transported him downtown for fingerprinting and processing. After that, the GBI agent and White County sheriff, who'd traveled to Atlanta, transported him back to the White County jail and placed him under arrest for Joel's murder. A few days later, on May 21st, investigators asked Margaret to come in and pick the man she knew as Ralph out of a five-suspect lineup.
27:15 Speaker 00 She agreed and stood behind a glass window and looked closely at the men authorities had arranged for her to review. She had no idea what any of their names were or where they were from, and right away, she picked out Ralph Fox as the guy who she claimed had killed Joel and then forced her to spend those harrowing two days with him on the AT.
27:35 Speaker 00 After he was caught and identified, Ralph willingly spoke with investigators and confessed to some of the elements of the crime. He admitted to tying up Margaret, ditching his rucksack for Joel's belongings, cleaning up the shelter area, and then forcing Margaret to go with him. However, he stopped short of admitting to shooting Joel or moving his body. He told authorities he wanted to wait for a lawyer to arrive before he got into any of that information. What's bizarre to me, though, is that during his interview, Ralph fessed up to meticulously going through Joel's stuff and removing anything that identified it as belonging to Joel. He said he made sure to dump all of that stuff in a trash can on a sidewalk in Atlanta. When questioned about where he got his .38 revolver, Ralph stated he'd previously bought
28:20 Speaker 00 it from someone in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He explained that he'd taken Margaret hostage because he didn't want to leave her in the woods alone. He claimed he never wanted to hurt her and knew that the entire time she was with him, she was definitely afraid of him. But not afraid enough to do something rash like freak out or signal for help. He described her as controlled enough to know better than to go against his instructions. Investigators tried to ask Ralph why things had gone the way they had at the Low Gap Shelter, but he wasn't super forthcoming. They wanted to know if maybe he'd argued or fought with Joel, but he said, "No, he hadn't." Investigators then asked Ralph if he'd simply gotten so desperate that he felt he had no choice but to rob Joel just to survive.
29:04 Speaker 00 But Ralph dispelled that suggestion, too. But authorities weren't necessarily buying what Ralph was telling them. After that, the walls quickly started to close in on him. Results from ballistic tests that came in on May 30th proved that the bullet the GBI doctor retrieved from Joel's skull matched the .38 caliber gun found in the house Ralph was staying at in Atlanta. There was no question, it was the murder weapon. In October, five months after the crime, Ralph was formally indicted for the murder and quickly took a plea deal. He was sentenced to life in prison, but Georgia law at the time allowed him to be eligible for parole after just seven years. That was terrifying news to Margaret Harret,
29:47 Speaker 00 who was quite literally the main person who helped secure his apprehension and conviction. She told me that in 1981, when that seven-year mark was quickly approaching, she had a very tough few months where she lived in fear and basically obsessed over the thought of Ralph getting out of prison and coming after her. By then, she'd gotten married and was living in Clemson, South Carolina, and announced all former vices of her youth, aka drugs and alcohol. But she was still genuinely worried that Ralph would get released, violate his parole, and harm her or someone close to her. And it's not like her concerns were unfounded, because around that time, or maybe shortly after, her sister told me that Ralph had sent a letter from prison
30:29 Speaker 00 to Margaret's parents at their home address in Sumter, South Carolina, which proved he at least knew where they lived. So that only compounded Margaret's fear that he'd find out where she'd settled down. But here's where I absolutely have the most respect and admiration for Margaret. She only let this fear-based mindset consume her for so long. After a couple of weeks, she made the conscious decision to take back her happiness and recapture agency of her own mind. She told me that after a few weeks of literally being consumed by fear, she stopped feeling like a victim and really started to live as a survivor, a fighter. She realized that some greater force, far more powerful than Ralph Fox, had spared her life for a reason,
31:13 Speaker 00 and that reason was so that she could live, like truly live. She would later put it to writer Earl Swift this way, saying, quote, "Maybe this experience helped me see that life is a fleeting moment, so grab it and go," end quote. She was determined to not allow Ralph and what he'd done to define her life. She became a follower of Eckin Carr, got really focused on her spirituality, and spent many years processing what happened to her and Joel. Ralph's life, on the other hand, took a far less positive turn.
31:48 Speaker 00 According to Earl Swift's reporting, in July 1991, after only serving about 17 years behind bars, one of Ralph's brothers passed away. So the state of Georgia granted him a one-month leave from prison to attend the memorial service back home in Michigan. Eventually, though, and the details aren't super clear, that leave got extended. Then it turned into full-blown parole. And before long, Ralph was a free man again. He was kept on supervised release, which was monitored by Michigan DOC officials, and he moved in with his sister in Lapeer County, Michigan. And this is the part that absolutely enraged me. Margaret Harret was never notified about any of this. Ralph's family members hoped that nearly
32:33 Speaker 00 two decades of hard prison time had reformed him. But unfortunately, for residents of Michigan, that was far from reality.
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33:53 Speaker 01 My name's Jack Wagner, host of Other World, a podcast featuring real people who experience something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained.
34:00 Speaker 02 I have no idea how I got there.
34:02 Speaker 03 I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks like this.
34:04 Speaker 04 It felt like electric stars on fire.
34:06 Speaker 01 I started Other World to take a grounded approach to the paranormal, help people tell their own stories, and encourage more to come forward. I certainly don't have the answers, but maybe one day we will. Join me as we explore our world's greatest mysteries. Listen to Other World now for free wherever you get your podcasts.
34:28 Speaker 00 In late February 1992, just seven months after getting paroled, Ralph was a no-show at his job, wasn't at his sister's place, and missed an appointment with his probation officer. One week after that, authorities in Lapeer County got a call from a local landowner who wanted to report that he'd found a young woman's naked body in some brush off a farm trail on his property. That victim had been strangled and literally tossed away like a piece of trash. Her autopsy indicated she'd been dead anywhere between 3 and 15 days, and unfortunately, there was no ID on her, so authorities had a hard time identifying her. They sent her fingerprints to the state crime lab, but didn't get a hit right away,
35:12 Speaker 00 so for several days, she was labeled as a Jane Doe. At the crime scene, the only real clue as to how she'd gotten there were some tire tracks, which, based on how they're described in the source material, were more like indentations in the mud that looked like a vehicle had been towed out recently. So, following that lead, authorities canvassed a few local wrecker shops to find out if any drivers had responded to the general area of the crime scene in the last few weeks. And sure enough, there was one driver, this guy named Frank, who told detectives that about nine days before Jane Doe was found, a man had called his shop and asked him to come to a rural field in Lapeer County to tow a blue-gray 1984 Mercury Cougar out of the mud. And you want to know who the owner of that car was?
35:57 Speaker 00 Ralph Howard Fox.
36:01 Speaker 00 Within a day of finding Jane Doe's body and learning that information from the tow truck driver, the Lapeer County Sheriff's Department was 100% convinced that Ralph was their prime suspect in her death. They issued a nationwide bulletin for him and eventually tracked him down, in of all places, a state park more than 2,000 miles away in Washington State. He was apprehended after being caught breaking into a car. While Washington investigators worked with Michigan law enforcement to extradite him back to Michigan, they seized his car as evidence and continued trying to identify the murdered woman. Between Friday, March 6th and Sunday, March 8th, the Sheriff's Department received about 45 calls from people who they thought might know who she was, but unfortunately, none
36:46 Speaker 00 of those well-meaning tips were helpful. But then, a little over a week after Ralph was arrested, Lapeer County investigators got the news they'd been waiting for. The Detroit Police Department, which is only about an hour south of Lapeer, got a hit for the victim's fingerprints in their files, and she was officially identified as 30-year-old Diane Good. According to coverage, Diane was a married mother of three from Detroit who engaged in sex work. The last time her husband saw her alive was on the morning of February 25th, 1992, the same day Ralph had called that tow truck driver to haul his car out of the mud, and just one day before he skipped out on his parole and job.
37:27 Speaker 00 The case against him for Diane's murder was pretty strong, because after his arrest, authorities had found an extension cord and rain slicker with blood that was the same type as Diane's in the trunk of his car. Which, though circumstantial, was still strong evidence that connected him to her murder. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in April, 1992, but by the time his trial concluded that November, jurors decided it was time for him to go back to a penitentiary permanently. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The judge at his sentencing hearing said, quote, "Mr. Fox, you were convicted of murder before in another state. You are now convicted of two murders in your lifetime.
38:10 Speaker 00 I am satisfied that you pose a substantial risk to a free society and that you should never be let out of prison, ever, for any reason." End quote.
38:21 Speaker 00 Edward Ronders reported for the Flint Journal that Diane Good's husband stated in court she often solicited clients in an area of Detroit known as Eight Mile Road. And Ralph's employer at the time of the crime testified that he'd assigned Ralph to several construction jobs in and around Eight Mile Road in early 1992, which meant he'd gotten to know that part of the city well. And tragically, through no fault of her own, Diane had unknowingly gotten into the wrong client's car at the wrong time. Ralph's sister told writer Earl Swift that reconciling with her brother's violent nature as an adult was difficult. She explained that his troubles with the law began very early in his life. At 17, he'd kidnapped a girl from a house party he had while his parents were out of town,
39:06 Speaker 00 and when he was 18, he was arrested for stealing a car and breaking and entering. In the early 1960s, he'd traveled to New Mexico with an underage girl named Anne and got arrested for statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Not long after that, he married Anne, who was just 16 years old, and she eventually became pregnant with his child. A year later, Ralph was caught red-handed tying up a teenage girl in Troy, Michigan, who'd he abducted at gunpoint. While he was on the run for that crime, Anne divorced him, and he was eventually recaptured in Florida and brought back to Michigan. He was sent to prison for what was supposed to be 15 years, but he escaped after only
39:45 Speaker 00 serving a few years. He was let out on parole in 1973, and not too long after that, went to Anne's home and tried to kill her. He was unsuccessful and went on the lam after that. In May 1974, he'd only been on the Appalachian Trail for five days when he came across Joel and Margaret. After his conviction in 1992 for Diane Good's murder, he spent the rest of his life in prison and died from cancer in 2003.
40:14 Speaker 00 In contrast, Margaret Harretts life thrived and is still thriving. She had children, finished her college degree, earned her masters and additional PhDs. She also worked in forestry and eventually settled into an extensive career with the International Development Agency, USAID. She's lived all over the world and has an incredibly impressive life. And perhaps, most important of all, she never lost her love of nature. She's retired now, but she told me that while she was working, she always felt a great sense of purpose in what she was doing, whether it was helping people in high-risk countries or doing forestry work. Sometimes, when she was in nature and marveling at just how amazing the world is, she would think of Joel.
40:59 Speaker 00 She said that in many ways, she credits some of her passion for the outdoors as a gift he gave to her. She told me that if he were still around today, she absolutely thinks they would be friends. Unfortunately, not a ton is known about Joel, other than what writer Earl Swift dug up about him for his 2018 article for Outside Magazine, and of course, Margaret's memories. Few reporters back in 1974 focused on him as the victim of this crime. Instead, it seems they became more fixated on Ralph Fox's arrest and prosecution. Earl Swift wrote in his article, though, that Joel grew up with his parents, John and Bonnie, and an older brother and sister named Johnny and Judith. He liked playing outside, but suffered a pretty serious fall from a rooftop when he
41:43 Speaker 00 was 13 or 14 years old. After that incident, he had trouble remembering what happened and was never quite the same. His brother later remarked that Joel was "thrown off by some sort of mental thing from that fall." In school, he was behind a bit and was two years older than all the other kids in his class. People who grew up with Joel told Earl Swift that he had a very shy, childlike kind of naive demeanor to him. He didn't have many friends and didn't have much luck when it came to dating. But he eventually matured and gained some popularity after he got super into photography and was a staple at his school events.
42:21 Speaker 00 One of his relatives told Earl Swift that after high school, Joel continued to pursue photography and even won some art competitions. He had a keen interest in plant and nature photography, which may have been what grew his fondness of travel and exploring the great outdoors. At the time of his murder, he was a part-time photographer for the Hartsville Messenger newspaper and studying photography at a college. By 1974, he'd grown his hair out long, gotten really into bluegrass music, and started making plans to hike the AT. He'd never had a girlfriend or any attachments that were keeping him in one specific place, so he eventually moved to Columbia and took a job at the alternative store in Five Points down the street from where Margaret Harret waited tables. Many people who knew Joel or were related to him
43:05 Speaker 00 described him as a trustworthy, kind person, who was a friend to all. He didn't view others as threatening and was as gentle as they come. As a self-protection mechanism, Margaret avoided visiting Joel's grave, but now that it's been so many years, she's finally at a place in her life where she feels healed. She told me she would be very happy to take a trip to his final resting place, and I hope one day she will. Even though she and Joel were separated in life at such young ages, I think visiting where he's buried would be a blissful reunion that's long overdue.
43:45 Speaker 00 Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. You can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.
44:03 Speaker 00 I think Chuck would approve.
44:10 Speaker 00 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.
44:26 Speaker 05 The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
44:30 Speaker 06 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
44:37 Speaker 05 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
44:45 Speaker 07 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
44:48 Speaker 00 That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying.
44:54 Speaker 05 I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into? I'm Eva Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
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