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At first I thought the headline referred to Bill Ewasko who has been missing in Joshua Park since 2010 [1]. I came across that story after somebody on HN poste

• supernova87a 5y ago
  I remember reading about that Bill Ewasko case back when it became newsworthy. On reflecting now, and hearing about other stories, I tend to think the guy was abducted / killed by someone in the wilderness, given the weirdness about his cell phone signals, etc. and him never having been found. There's a lot of shady shit that goes on in the desert, even in a place like Joshua Tree. Anyway, aside from that, I am perpetually in awe / fascinated by how we as human beings long to solve a puzzle, no matter how distant or unfamiliar (or insignificant) another person is to us. There are stories about townspeople keeping a stranger's death alive for decades until solving it. It's almost like a mysterious death is as important, if not more important in a collective consciousness, as lots of people dying from something that is well known or not "interesting"...
  • oh_sigh 5y ago
    Why would that person turn on the phone 3 days later for a brief moment while they're still near the park, and then turn it off forever? It seems more likely that he just fell down an old mine shaft or into a pit of some kind. Maybe his phone couldn't get service but because of some temporary atmospheric condition it was able to ping the tower.
  • fred_is_fred 5y ago
    It's far easier to die alone and probably injured and never be found in the wilderness than people think, especially in mountainous desert terrain.