Pod Insights Park Predators The Trappers About this episode When three fur trappers in Oregon disappeared from their rural outpost in 1924, their family members sounded the alarm about a bizarre scene left in the snow. Authorities launched an investigation that was months behind a killer and found themselves hunting a career criminal who may have pulled off the greatest caper of his life.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to tell you about today requires a little bit of time travel. It took place more than 100 years ago at Little and Big Lava Lakes in Oregon's Deschutes National Forest. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website, Little Lava Lake sits about half-mile south of Big Lava Lake. Both bodies of water are byproducts of lava flows that, a long time ago, formed dams on their shorelines. Even though Little Lava is only 130 acres in size, it's actually the source of the Deschutes River, so talk about small but powerful. Both lakes are also teeming with trout, whitefish, and other species of fish.
0:43 Speaker 00 The state record for the largest brook trout ever snagged in Little Lava Lake was 9 pounds 6 ounces, and that was back in 1980. Decades before that, though, something else was discovered in and around these bodies of water that made the history books. And it had nothing to do with fishing. In the cold winter of 1924, three men monitoring a fur-trapping outpost near the lakes vanished, only to resurface in a place no one expected. If you think you know the story of the Little Lava Lake murders, buckle up, because you probably don't. At least, not as well as you may think. This is Park Predators.
2:04 Speaker 00 By mid-April 1924, a woman named Sarah Wilson was extremely worried. You see, it had been several months since her 36-year-old son, Harry Leroy Wilson, who often just went by Roy, had left their home in Bend, Oregon, and headed about 25 miles southwest to Little Lava Lake in Deschutes National Forest.
2:25 Speaker 00 The last time Sarah had physically seen Roy was around Christmas of 1923. At that time, he and one of his friends, 53-year-old Ed Nichols, had traveled from a cabin they worked at, at Little Lava Lake, to spend time with loved ones for the holidays. Sometimes shortly after the festivities ended, the men departed and traveled back to the rural cabin. Joining them was another friend, 23-year-old Dewey Morris, who'd actually worked with Roy as a logger in the past. Before setting off with his companions, Roy told his mom that he'd come home sometime in February. But when that month came and then went, and then the next, and Roy was still not home, that's when Sarah realized something wasn't right.
3:07 Speaker 00 It's hard to tell from the available source material if she got in contact with Ed or Dewey's family members during this time. But what I can tell you is that she was not the only relative who was worried about the overdue men. On Sunday, April 13th, one of Dewey's brothers, named Owen Morris, and Roy's brother-in-law, Hervey Ennis, decided to go out to Little Lava Lake and figure out what was going on. Weather conditions had improved greatly by that time, and so the roads were clear enough for them to drive some of the way and then snowshoe about seven miles or so to get to the trapper's cabin. The terrain they had to trek on foot wasn't treacherous, but it also wasn't a cakewalk. There was still a lot of snow on the ground. But eventually, Hervey and Owen did make it to the cabin.
3:52 Speaker 00 However, when they arrived, no one was there. Unsure of what else to do, the pair looked around inside and noticed a few things that seemed unusual. Dishes were left sitting on a table, and utensils and cookware with food still on them were laying around and showed signs of mold. Firearms and traps were also inside the cabin, and trash was scattered on the floor. There was extra clothing and supplies that didn't appear to have been used. Hervey and Owen also found boots and snowshoes that reportedly belonged to Ed, Dewey, and Roy, cleaned and left near the front door. There was also a calendar that was still displaying January as the month, not April. So it was almost like the cabin had been frozen in time, for three months, which I
4:36 Speaker 00 imagine felt eerie to Hervey and Owen.
4:40 Speaker 00 Another clue that indicated no one had been there in a while was the presence of equipment that Ed, Dewey, and Roy would have normally used in their trapping duties. Except, the stuff was in a state of neglect, which indicated the men had not been actively using it. Other than everything just seemingly sitting idle, there really wasn't anything that indicated a struggle or violent encounter had occurred. There was nothing like a note or message that explained where the missing trio was. When Hervey and Owen checked outside, they made another discovery that felt unusual. Several pens that the cabin's owner, a guy named Ed Logan, kept live foxes in, were all empty. The source material doesn't state exactly how far these pens were from the cabin, but
5:24 Speaker 00 it's believed that the cages were close by. Anyway, the pens being vacant was not a good sign, so I imagine, figuring out whether the foxes had somehow escaped on their own, or if they'd been stolen, Hervey and Owen investigated the animals' food supply. But that only led to more questions, because when they checked the fox's feed pens, they realized there was a lot of food still left in them. In fact, according to Melanie Tupper's book, "The Trapper Murders," and coverage by The Bend Bulletin, Hervey and Owen had been informed before heading out to the cabin that food for the foxes had been delivered around January 13, 1924. So, a long time before they got there. And yet, when the two of them saw how much food was still untouched, they realized the
6:09 Speaker 00 foxes could not have been fed after mid-January. Around the same time Hervey and Owen noticed the empty fox pens and excess food, they came across something else even more alarming. In a patch of snow roughly 30 feet west of the cabin, the pair found what looked like a bloodstain: three pistol shells and five shotgun shells. On the other side of the structure, about 10 feet away from the cabin, they stumbled across what appeared to be pieces of a skull. The source material doesn't say whether they collected any of that stuff, though, because additional coverage by author Melanie Tupper explains those items stayed in the snow for several more days.
6:51 Speaker 00 After clocking all these suspicious things, the men followed a pair of tracks in the snow that led from the cabin all the way to Big Lava Lake, which was at least a half mile away. The tracks ended near some ice on the shore of the lake, right next to a six-foot-long wooden sled that Hervey and Owen recognized as belonging to Ed, Dewey, and Roy. It was the kind of sled you could pull by hand, and they were known to use it to haul things while doing work for Ed Logan. When Hervey and Owen found it, they noticed bloodstains on it, which, again, probably gave them a bad feeling.
7:24 Speaker 00 Two days later, on April 15, the sheriff of Deschutes County officially opened an investigation into the matter. He assigned a deputy sheriff named Clarence Adams to head up the search for the missing men and travel out to the cabin to piece together the bizarre scene that Hervey and Owen had found. And to say that Deputy Sheriff Adams was built to spearhead a case like this is an understatement. Turns out, prior to working for the sheriff's office, he'd been a game warden in the area, and as a result, was familiar with the landscape around both lava lakes. He also knew fairly well the 30-mile stretch of landscape where trappers like Ed, Dewey, and Roy would historically set their trap lines. In addition to the cabin the three men had been staying in, there were three other cabins
8:08 Speaker 00 on that 30-mile stretch of terrain, and Investigator Adams planned to check all of those locations for clues. He needed to figure out if maybe something had happened to the missing men while they were out in the forest working their traps, or if they'd been victims of maybe a theft that turned into foul play. The latter was quickly becoming the strongest theory authorities were considering, probably because of the blood and firearm evidence that had been discovered, and the fact that no one had seemingly heard from any of the missing trappers in several months. To gather as much intel as possible, Deputy Sheriff Adams enlisted help from the acting supervisor of Deschutes National Forest and rangers in the Greater Cascade Lakes region. Through this network of people,
8:51 Speaker 00 he learned that an up-and-coming resort developer and businessman from near Bend named Alan Will Coxon had visited with Ed, Dewey, and Roy on the evening of January 15, 1924. Alan operated the Elk Lake camp, some five or six miles north of the Lava Lakes, and he knew Ed Logan, the man Ed Nichols and the others worked for. So since Alan's place was so close by, it made sense for him to pit stop at the cabin and see the trappers. When Investigator Adams spoke with Alan, he said that while he'd been with the men, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. They had a good evening together and chatted about how much money the three of them had made fur trapping over the winter, which was reportedly like $3,000 worth of skins
9:34 Speaker 00 at the going currency rate back then. On April 15th, Ed Logan, the owner of the remote cabin, along with two more of Dewey's brothers, traveled from Ben to the Lava Lakes to get involved in the investigation. The source material isn't super clear on specifics, but it appears those guys and others, along with members of law enforcement, formed an official search party for Ed, Dewey, and Roy at that point. Melanie Tupper's book, "The Trapper Murders," refers to this search effort as "the second search effort conducted for the men," since, you know, Hervey and Owen had technically been to the cabin first on their own. Anyway, on the 15th, during the second search, the sheriff also ordered a boat crew go out on Little Lava Lake and a nearby reservoir to see if the missing trappers had possibly
10:19 Speaker 00 fallen through the ice somewhere in those locations and become trapped. Back at the cabin, Investigator Adams and other folks in the search party looking for Ed, Dewey, and Roy came across at least five fox carcasses that Hervey and Owen had seemingly missed during their initial trip. These carcasses were completely skinned of fur and discarded in some brush not far from the pens the animals were normally kept in. The foxes themselves were valued at around $1,800 for that time period, which would be somewhere in the ballpark of slightly more than $33,000 today.
10:55 Speaker 00 Now, what made the discovery of the carcasses so odd was the fact that there were no fox pelts anywhere inside or outside the cabin. So if Ed, Dewey, and Roy had killed the foxes and skinned them, it didn't really make sense that the furs were nowhere to be found. Unless, for some reason, the trio had left with the pelts and tried to sell them, but based on the available source material I could find, that wasn't something Ed Logan had tasked the men with or instructed them to do. There was also no sign that the missing men had tended any of their previously set trap lines. So law enforcement's growing suspicion was that something untoward had happened to them. The next day, April 16th,
11:37 Speaker 00 Deputy Sheriff Adams traveled back to Bend to fill in the sheriff about what he'd seen at the cabin and what was going on with the investigation. On that return trip, he'd brought with him a sample of the blood that had been found on the wooden sled abandoned at Big Lava Lake. Deep down, Investigator Adams was one of those folks who suspected murder was afoot. And he thought that the blood might belong to one of the missing men if perhaps they'd been killed closer to the cabin and then their bodies were transported on the sled and dumped in the lake. As interesting of a theory as that was, though, when results from a microscopic examination of the blood came back two days later, on April 18th, the findings indicated it wasn't human. No source material confirms for sure
12:22 Speaker 00 whether whoever examined it suggested it could have belonged to a fox or some kind of other animal, but at that point in the case, the blood was not believed to have come from a person. Still, law enforcement strongly suspected that the three missing trappers had been killed by someone, not died accidentally or gotten lost, but murdered. They didn't have bodies to prove that, but there was strong circumstantial evidence that pointed to homicide.
12:50 Speaker 00 An article published by The Oregonian just a few days into the investigation detailed how the sheriff of Deschutes County was convinced Ed, Dewey, and Roy had been sunken in Big Lava Lake after being killed by an unknown perpetrator or perpetrators who stolen fox pelts from them. The problem was, with no bodies to support that assumption, the case couldn't go anywhere beyond just theories. That is until Ed Logan, the cabin's owner, took a walk across the still-frozen Big Lava Lake on April 19, 1924. He made it about 100 yards across the ice when he noticed a hole that had been either cut or hacked through the top of the lake. It was apparently just the right size to fit a person's body through, and was reportedly in the shape of a circle.
13:34 Speaker 00 All things considered, it looked out of place on the otherwise solid slab of ice. Ed Logan notified Investigator Adams about this discovery, and shortly thereafter, Hervey Ennis, Roy's brother-in-law, and Owen Morris, one of Dewey's brothers, found out about the hole. When Deputy Sheriff Adams took a closer look at the opening, he found what looked like blood around it, and a piece of light brown hair near the edge that he suspected had come from a person's head. Until the ice melted, though, Adams and those helping him couldn't really do much more investigating. It's not like they could dive down into the frigid water or break up the ice themselves. So for the time being, they were sort of at the mercy of Mother Nature. While law enforcement waited,
14:18 Speaker 00 they continued to scour the trap lines the missing men were known to use, you know, to make extra sure they weren't in any of those locations or out in the forest somewhere. But it became clear that the trappers were not in any of those places. It was also around this same time that the sheriff's office learned about an interesting transaction that had occurred about three hours northwest of Bend, all the way in Portland, Oregon. A transaction that would change the course of their investigation.
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15:58 Speaker 01 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
16:03 Speaker 02 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
16:07 Speaker 01 I'm Eliza Orland, career public defender.
16:09 Speaker 02 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
16:12 Speaker 01 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
16:19 Speaker 02 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
16:33 Speaker 00 According to Melanie Tupper's book that I've mentioned a few times already, on April 19th, just a few days into law enforcement's investigation, authorities learned that four of the five missing fox skins that had presumably been scalped from the live foxes at Ed Logan's cabin had been sold to a fur-trading business in Portland called the Schumacher Fur Company.
16:56 Speaker 00 The operator of that store, a guy named Carl Schumacher, had been keeping up with the newspaper stories about the missing trappers. And because he worked in that industry, he just found the whole thing kind of interesting. So when a game warden assisting in the investigation happened to randomly come into his store and ask where some of his recent fox pelt inventory originated from, Carl sort of had an OMG moment, and volunteered that he'd recently had two men visit his store from Bend, peddling a bunch of fox skins. This information piqued investigators' interest, and they soon learned from Carl's purchasing records for January 1924 that on the 22nd of that month, he'd bought four fox skins from an out-of-town trapper. Even more interesting was the fact
17:41 Speaker 00 that the person who'd made that transaction with Carl claimed to be none other than Ed Nichols, one of the missing trappers. The man who claimed to be Ed had even produced Ed's trapping license when asked. Further testimony that somewhat corroborated Carl's account came from a police officer in Portland who reported he'd bumped into two men in January 1924 who were walking through town with a bunch of furs they were trying to sell. The travelers had stopped this officer to ask for directions to fur trading shops, and while they chatted, the officer learned the men had recently come from Bend. When authorities investigating the missing trapper's case showed a photograph of Ed Nichols to the policeman and Carl Schumacher, it became clear almost immediately
18:25 Speaker 00 that the person they'd both interacted with was not the real Ed Nichols.
18:32 Speaker 00 Investigators were dealing with an imposter, and most likely someone who was directly involved in Ed, Dewey, and Roy's disappearance. It just seemed like too much of a coincidence that the three men had last been seen alive on January 15th, and then just a few days later, someone pretending to be one of them showed up in Portland hawking the very fox pelts that were missing from the cabin. One of the men who sold the furs was described as about 5'7" tall, weighed roughly 150 pounds, and had donned a beaver skin hat and khaki clothes. The day after learning about this lead, authorities got a tip that the fifth missing fox skin had been sold in the Klamath Falls area of Oregon, which is about five hours south of Portland and two hours south of Bend.
19:17 Speaker 00 By April 21st, Deputy Sheriff Adams and a colleague had traveled to that area to investigate. But according to news coverage at the time, that lead turned out to be a dead end and not related to the case. When Investigator Adams returned to Little and Big Lava Lakes and resumed his investigation on April 23rd, that's when things in the case changed dramatically. Around 5:30 PM on that day, while walking to Big Lava Lake with Hervey Ennis to catch some fish for what I presume was everyone out at the lake's dinner for the evening, Adams and Hervey spotted three objects floating near one another on the surface of the water in a spot where some ice had thawed and broken up. The pair immediately got into a boat and headed toward the dark objects.
20:00 Speaker 00 When they arrived, it became obvious the ominous shapes were the bodies of the three missing trappers. According to Melanie Tupper's book and coverage by The Oregonian, Ed and Roy were both face down in the water and Dewey was face up. All three were quickly identified by folks present at the scene who knew them, and shortly afterward, their bodies were transported a short distance from shore and anchored in the water until the coroner could arrive. That night, Deputy Sheriff Adams traveled back to Bend to inform his boss of the discovery. Meanwhile, Ed Logan and Hervey Ennis stayed at the Lava Lakes to watch over the trappers and make sure no one messed with their bodies. As far as what was found with the men and what kind of injuries they sustained, the
20:44 Speaker 00 available source material varies a little bit, but overall, here's what I gathered. Dewey, the youngest of the trio, had been struck in the head with some sort of blunt object, possibly a hammer, and he'd also been shot in his left forearm with a shotgun. A hat was reported to be either still on him or floating in the water or ice nearby. Ed, the eldest, had been shot in the head with a shotgun, but a pair of glasses were reportedly somehow still on his face when he was found. He'd also been shot at least once in his throat with a .38 caliber round from a revolver. Roy had been shot in the head with a revolver, and the bullet was said to have entered near the back of his right ear. He'd also sustained a wound to his right shoulder from a shotgun.
21:28 Speaker 00 Both of his injuries appeared to have come from the shooter standing behind him when they fired. All three victims' manners of death were eventually ruled as homicide, and their date of death was determined to be on or soon after January 15, 1924. Dewey left behind his mom and sister, who lived in Portland, and several other siblings. Ed was survived by two daughters and several brothers and sisters. Roy was mourned by his mom, Sarah, and two sisters.
21:58 Speaker 00 Interestingly, when all of them were found, none of them were dressed in attire that you'd typically wear in cold weather. So, no heavy coats, jackets, nothing like that. Which kind of surprised investigators, because it seemed odd that the seasoned outdoorsman would have ventured into the cold without at least a jacket on. Based on this observation, the predominant theory investigators ran with was that someone had likely lured the three men out of the cabin while they were in the middle of eating or settling in for the day. That's based on what I gathered. That would explain why they'd left their boots inside and not put on more appropriate clothing, not to mention food, which was in the middle of being cooked and eaten, was abandoned.
22:39 Speaker 00 Also, the Oregonian reported an interesting detail about Ed Nichols' glasses. Apparently, he had two different pairs, one for seeing when he was outside and another for just reading. And it was the pair for reading that was still on his face when he was discovered in the lake. So that detail only further supported law enforcement's theory that he and the others had most likely been inside the cabin when something or someone got their attention to make them curious enough to go outside. That same piece by the Oregonian also stated that during a subsequent search of the cabin on April 24, authorities had located a hammer with blood on it buried in the dirt floor of the cabin. In light of all that information and findings from the coroner's review of the men's bodies,
23:22 Speaker 00 Deputy Sheriff Adams told local newspapers that he believed at least two people had been involved in the murders. With one acting as a distraction to get the three trappers out of their cabin, and the other lying in wait to ambush them. Adams explained that the evidence he'd gathered so far strongly indicated the attackers shot and beat the victims closer to the cabin and then loaded their bodies onto the wooden sled and transported them to Big Lava Lake to dispose of them in the ice. I said "shot and beat" in that last part because it was believed that perhaps Dewey had initially been able to make a run for it, but then was overtaken east of the cabin and bludgeoned to death, which explained the partial skull fragments that had been observed in that location early on.
24:06 Speaker 00 Adams said that after committing the crime, the assailants had stolen whatever animal pelts the victims had already produced for the season and then skinned the live foxes near the cabin for additional furs. On April 25th, more than three months after Ed, Dewey, and Roy were last seen alive, all of them were buried side by side at Greenwood Cemetery in Bend. That same day, the county coroner's inquest concluded, and he determined that all of the men had been shot with what he described as "heavy game shot," and it was possible at least one of the victims' own firearms had been used in the crime. Though that's not a fact I saw emphasized in later reporting, so I'm unsure how accurate that is.
24:48 Speaker 00 What's wild to me, though, is that around this same time, more information about the blood previously taken from the crime scene was discussed publicly. Apparently, back when that one sample from the wooden sled had first been tested and determined not to be human, that was incorrect. After the first microscopic exam, the sheriff had sent the blood sample to what was known at the time as the University of Oregon Medical School for a second opinion from a pathologist. And wouldn't you know it, when analysis from that testing came back in late April after the bodies were found, it was confirmed as human. I'm not sure who the heck had looked at the sample the first time around, but whoever they were, they were not very good at their job because they were definitely wrong.
25:32 Speaker 00 But with that issue finally cleared up, it meant that law enforcement's journey was kind of just beginning. Because now they needed to hone in on a killer or killers, which required them to consider a handful of scenarios and figure out if any of the three victims might have had enemies. Initially Dewey's brother Owen and Roy's brother-in-law Hervey had indicated that, to their knowledge, none of the men were at odds with anyone. But upon closer inspection, that wasn't exactly true.
26:06 Speaker 01 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
26:12 Speaker 00 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
26:15 Speaker 01 I'm Eliza Orland, career public defender.
26:18 Speaker 00 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
26:21 Speaker 01 And on our brand new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
26:27 Speaker 00 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
26:42 Speaker 00 According to coverage by The Ben Bulletin, in early April 1923, so less than a year before Ed Dewey and Roy were killed, Dewey had been tried in Ben for sexually assaulting a young woman in his car in November 1922. That trial was super short, and it took jurors just seven minutes to find him not guilty. I wish I could tell you more about this situation and how the outcome was viewed by the community or the victim and her family, but there's very little coverage still out there about it, and I don't really know anything more than what I just told you. Melanie Tupper wrote in her book, The Trapper Murders, that the young woman in that case came from a prominent family, and after the trial concluded, the whole thing was written about by the press at the time as sort of a laughable matter.
27:27 Speaker 00 But it definitely sticks out to me that this trial happened fewer than nine months before Dewey and his friends were eventually murdered. It's hard not to wonder if maybe there could have been some kind of connection. But I'm not sure that law enforcement back in the day was willing or able to make that kind of leap. Because according to the available source material, one of the stronger theories law enforcement latched on to very quickly was that someone who'd had a vendetta or beef with perhaps the cabin's owner, Ed Logan, or one of the trappers themselves, was responsible. Turns out, there was such a person. His name was Charles Kimsey.
28:06 Speaker 00 According to an article by Scott Elness for Central Oregon Daily News and other sources, in the early 1920s, both Alan Wilcoxen and Ed Logan had employed Charles at their businesses. In fact, the then 38-year-old had worked specifically during the 1922-1923 trapping season alongside Ed Nichols around the Lava Lakes. And just like Ed Nichols, he was responsible for tending to Ed Logan's fox farm. At that time, though, it seems as if Charles had gone by the alias Lee Collins. So apparently neither Ed Logan or Ed Nichols knew him by his true identity, Charles Kimsey. If they had, they would have learned he was a wanted fugitive from Idaho who was on the
28:48 Speaker 00 run, absconding from a 14-year prison sentence. In the spring of 1923, Ed Logan had a disagreement with Charles, and as a result, Charles ended up stealing furs, jewelry, and money from him and Ed Nichols. After that, he fled the area. Within a few weeks, his real identity became known to the press because, according to articles by the Bend Bulletin and the Oregonian, he committed a vicious robbery in August of 1923, not far from Bend, which involved carjacking and kidnapping. In that incident, though, the victim survived. Charles wasn't immediately caught for that offense, which meant during the timeframe that Ed, Dewey, and Roy were killed, his whereabouts were unknown.
29:30 Speaker 00 In late 1923 and early January 1924, there had been some suspected sightings of an unknown man or person riding on horseback in Lepine, which was the closest town to the Lava Lakes cabin. But no one could definitively put Charles in the company of the three trappers. And it's not like anyone confirmed that that unknown person on the horse was Charles. But interestingly, Roy Wilson had served in the United States Marine Corps during World War I, and even though he hadn't spent time overseas, he was still a trained Marine and was described as a rugged person, who would have probably had the skills necessary to fight off an attacker, or at least put up a decent fight if he'd seen one coming.
30:11 Speaker 00 His background might explain why Ed Nichols invited him to spend the winter with him and Dewey at Ed Logan's remote cabin in 1924. You know, to have a little extra muscle around. Especially considering the fact that Ed Nichols knew that Charles Kimsey, who'd already robbed him and Ed Logan once before, was still at large. To do their due diligence, authorities in Portland decided to show a photo of Charles to the police officer who'd bumped into those two fur sellers. You know, the pair that reportedly went on to sell several pelts to Carl Schumacher? Well, when that officer saw Charles's picture, he identified him as one of the men in that duo who'd been hawking the furs. Carl, on the other hand, though, couldn't make a 100% ID.
30:55 Speaker 00 He said that Charles Kimsey sort of looked like the man who'd sold him the furs, but he couldn't be absolutely sure. He was kind of incredulous about the whole thing, telling the Oregonian, quote, "I remember the fellow well. You would think that a man with that crime hanging over him would be secretive and nervous, but he was not. I remember him so well because he stayed in the store and talked so long," end quote. With suspicions mounting about Charles's potential involvement in the triple homicide at Lava Lakes, the sheriff of Deschutes County issued a $1,500 reward for his capture, which, remember, back then, was a lot of money. Investigators in Idaho learned from a woman who'd been close with Charles there that
31:38 Speaker 00 he might have returned to the Lava Lakes cabin in January 1924 to enact retribution against Ed Nichols, because he was still holding a grudge about what had happened with his job the previous year. As the investigation progressed, law enforcement learned that between January 19th and January 22nd, 1924, Charles and an unknown associate had been spotted at cabins along the McKenzie River, which is northwest of the Lava Lakes, so essentially en route to that fur store where the stolen fox pelts were sold. Unfortunately, though, Charles seemed to stay one step ahead of investigators and eluded arrest for months, and then years.
32:19 Speaker 00 He didn't resurface again until mid-February 1933, nearly a decade after the Trapper murders. According to coverage by The Bend Bulletin, he was captured near Kalispell, Montana after living for a while under an alias and residing as a recluse off the grid. During the 10 years or so he'd lived on the lam, he'd been suspected of several more crimes, which included forgery, theft, and the attempted murder of a Montanan sheepherder, and the murder of an architect from Utah, whose skeletal remains were found dumped near Las Vegas, Nevada in 1927.
32:54 Speaker 00 When Charles was finally captured in 1933, he was 47 years old. It took a few weeks for law enforcement officials to confirm his identity from his fingerprints. However, once his identity was proven and arrest warrants for murder were issued against him for the Lava Lakes slangs, he denied any involvement in or having knowledge of that crime. He claimed when the murders happened, he was all the way in Colorado, working on a railroad tunnel project. That alibi was proven false, though, when investigators looked into it and determined that he'd only worked on the tunnel project from December 16, 1923, until January 6, 1924. Meaning, he could have had time to travel from Colorado to Oregon in order to commit the murders.
33:38 Speaker 00 Melanie Tupper explained in her book that when Charles was brought back to Oregon in March 1933, he was questioned about the Trapper murders and put in a police lineup. The Portland police officer, who 10 years earlier had identified him from a photograph as one of the men who'd been looking to sell furs, could no longer pick him out, likely due to so much time going by. Carl Schumacher was also unable to identify Charles from the lineup. Again, likely because nearly a decade had passed by that point.
34:09 Speaker 00 So, the first case Charles was indicted for and went to trial for was not the triple homicide, but rather the assault and robbery he'd committed the summer before where the victim survived. Though the court proceeding for that case had nothing to do with the Trapper murders, many of the people who attended the trial were more interested in the Lava Lakes case than anything else. News coverage from The Times stated that no less than 150 people crowded into the courtroom to watch the trial, despite those proceedings not really getting into the unsolved homicides. The robbery and assault trial wrapped up on April 22, 1933, with a conviction. And though a lot of people over the years have incorrectly assumed Charles was found
34:52 Speaker 00 guilty of the Trapper murders in those proceedings, he actually wasn't. He was only found guilty of robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon, thanks mostly to the surviving victim of that crime testifying against him in court. Charles was sentenced to life in prison, the maximum sentence the judge could give him. Interestingly, in 1940, about seven years into his sentence when he came up for parole, he'd listed Alan Wilcoxen as a character witness. You know, someone who was supposed to say good things about him. And that's so wild to me because Alan was also the last person who saw Ed, Dewey, and Roy the night they were believed to have been attacked and killed.
35:33 Speaker 00 So what this means is that Charles was close enough to Alan to trust him to be a character witness in front of the parole board, which ultimately resulted in him getting put into a work release program versus serving all of his time behind bars. Author Melanie Tupper pointed out in her book that a few years prior to operating Elk Lake Camp near the Lava Lakes, Alan Wilcoxen had befriended Charles and possibly even dabbled in distilling moonshine in the Cascade Lakes region, which was an endeavor that very easily could have involved Charles. Whether there's any truth to that allegation, though, is something we'll probably never know. As far as is documented, Alan was never considered a suspect in the murders.
36:15 Speaker 00 In 1927, a few years after the crime and several years before Charles would ever be apprehended, the lead investigator for Deschutes County Sheriff's Office in the Trapper homicides, Clarence Adams, died in an automobile accident and was unable to continue pursuing the case. It's worth noting, though, that Charles Kimsey didn't stay out of trouble for long. After 1940, he was assigned to that work release type program I mentioned a second ago, but escaped from that in 1945, only to be caught and sent back to prison until he was paroled for good in August of 1957. According to Melanie Tupper's book, he lived the rest of his life a free man and died in 1976 in his early 90s.
36:59 Speaker 00 If he was the true perpetrator of the Lava Lakes murders, he never faced justice for those crimes. And any suspected accomplice he may have had has also skirted responsibility. The cabin where the murders occurred is said to be long gone, and its exact location remains a mystery due to how much time has passed and development has come to that region. It was believed to be somewhere in the woods near the northern shore of Little Lava Lake. In the years since the crime, three buttes roughly six miles southeast of the lake were named "The Three Trappers" in honor of Ed, Dewey, and Roy. Something I read while researching this case that stuck out to me had to do with Sarah Wilson, Roy's mother.
37:41 Speaker 00 A few articles I saw reiterated that, from the get-go, she suspected something nefarious had befallen her only son. Despite family members and friends early on trying to talk her out of those fears, she insisted that Roy and his companions had been murdered. No one seemed to listen to her, until the truth finally surfaced. Maybe this is a reminder that sometimes mothers know best, perhaps better than most. A quick reminder that Park Predators is off next week, but don't worry, I'll be back the following week with another episode.
38:25 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. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? 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. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
39:10 Speaker 03 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
39:17 Speaker 00 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
39:25 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
39:28 Speaker 00 That's the one time that we called the cops, because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
39:33 Speaker 05 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
39:38 Speaker 00 I'm Ava 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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