A very personal account of the author as she investigates the murder of two campers at Shenandoah National Park in 1996. Not only does Miles give us an account of the women’s last weeks, as best as it can be known, but she also takes us inside the investigation and into her own obsession with the case. This was an interesting look at a tragic (and tragically unsolved) crime, and it presents a credible theory as to who the murderer may have been.

Now this is a well written and well researched true crime book. I’d call this a must read.

I had never heard of the main case covered in this one and I enjoyed the fact that the author had actually researched and also did some experiments. Not to mention she got to discuss the case with one of the people from the beginning of the FBI behavior analysis unit?? GOALS.

I absolutely devoured this which is so weird to say for a true crime book. I highly recommend on audio, but it was also great in print.

A thank you to NetGalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read a lot of serial killer fiction, forensic mysteries, and often equally intrigued by the said subjects when it comes to film and TV. However, while I went through the (possibly typical) obsession with true crime as a teen, I tend to steer clear, the exception being, the phenomenal I'll Be Gone in the Dark. Although I can't say that I was as blown away by this book as I was by Michelle McNamara's, it was fascinating and I was engaged from start to finish. Was excellent on audio and I would totally watch a film and/or documentary version.

I picked up this book because the crime happened relatively close to where I live and involves the beautiful outdoors and hiking, two of my favorite things, but I think I don't actually like true crime books... For example, I really didn't care for I'll Be Gone in the Dark, which everyone seemed to love. I just found it ALL OVER THE PLACE and Trailed was a little like that as well. However, I definitely appreciate how much work the author put into researching the book! You can tell she really devoted her life to it for a significant amount of time. And I met her at a conference and she seems like a lovely person. So if you like true crime and all the nitty gritty details, and are used to these type of books that aren't in chronological order, you would really like this one. The one thing I did recognize is how she brings to light the injustices of the criminal "justice" system and how they work to make all the evidence fit whenever they have a particular suspect in mind. This happens much more often than you would imagine unfortunately.

Book Review- Trailed: One Woman’s Quest To Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles

Trailed is a true crime novel about an unsolved double murder case at a U.S. National Park in 1996. The writer Kathryn Miles delves into the lives of the victims, their last days and the potential suspects in a case that has shown difficult to solve due to the isolated outdoor setting of their deaths.
Two experienced twenty-something
backpackers Julie Williams and Lollie Winans planned a two week backpacking trip through Shenandoah National Park in May of 1996 only the have their bodies found near their isolated campsite days later. Over the last 25 years the attempts to find their killer will be clouded by suggestions of a hate crime and fixation on a suspect that never stood trial.
Kathryn Miles crafted a well-researched investigation into the possibilities of what happened to Lollie and Julie. She interviewed many people touched by the murders and puts together a solid case against another possible suspect. She also speaks about violence against women in the National Parks and the often misogynistic and non-inclusive nature of backpacking and the outdoor lifestyle.
I found this true crime book to be well written and interesting. She is respectful of the lives lost kept the victims at the center of the book. This is an excellent read for true crime readers and I hope it brings attention to this tragic unsolved case.
4 stars

Trailed
by Kathyrn Miles
Pub Date: May 3, 2022
Algonquin
A riveting deep-dive into the unsolved murder of two free-spirited young women in the wilderness, a journalist's obsession, and a new theory of who might have done it
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I enjoy true crime and especially cold cases so this book was intriguing to me.
Sometimes unsolved cases really bother me, but we were introduced to things that will certainly keep me more alert. I loved that the book covered DNA testing, CSI, and hair microscopy and the problems with these techniques.
4 stars!

It’s blog tour day for Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles. I was unfamiliar with this case until I read this book. I am not a huge true crime consumer in general, but this intrigued me!

Miles was fully consumed by the dive into this case and you can tell through her writing. A big question that this book poses: how dedicated are the officials in that work in the state parks at keeping its visitors safe, especially women and marginalized people? With Lollie and Julie’s case, officials seemed determined not to follow the consistent evidence they got and tried to pin it on someone based on flimsy tips.

I thought this was a very interesting journey we were taken on, although I didn’t feel like much was accomplished by the end. The story meandered in different areas for most of the book and towards the end, seemed rushed to present and tie up its theories. I still enjoyed my time reading it, but I felt I could have been more satisfied!

Thanks to @algonquinbooks for having me and for the review copy

This is a well researched nonfiction work, which will be especially of interest to those who enjoy hiking, and the Appalachian Trail, specifically.
The author has met / interviewed key players in the book and its obvious she has compassion with the two women who were murdered, as well as their family and friends.
The mystery of what has happened to several / many through-hikers and day hikers is intriguing. And this book illustrates the possibility that a serial killer is actually the perpetrator of the specific murders illustrated in this book.
The focus on he LBTQ part, that people who are gay are somehow especially susceptible to being murdered while hiking is preposterous to me. I think the vulnerability of being female, and hiking / camping in very small groups or individually is far more likely to make them vulnerable. So that was a hard element to swallow in this book.
The book is well-written, well-laid out and I would recommend it to friends who also like to read about hiking and nature.

Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders (Algonquin Books 2022) by Kathryn Miles details the brutal murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, who were killed in Virginia’s Shenandoah national park while on a hiking trip in 1996. The case has long since been cold, although the FBI and rangers from the National Park Service insist that Darnell Rice committed the murders. Rice was indicted in 2002 for the murders, and the attorney general revealed during the announcement that Rice would also be “the first person tried under new enhanced sentencing measures that allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty in federal hate crime cases.” Winans and Williams were queer women, and authorities claimed they had reason to believe that their murderer chose them because of their sexuality. However, come 2004, the feds dismissed all charges against Rice, “citing insurmountable challenges that included contradictory evidence.” In other words, they had no physical, or non-circumstantial, evidence tying Rice to the crime. This did not stop the feds from continuing to pursue a case against Rice, despite the lack of evidence that existed condemning him and the wealth of evidence that pointed to another suspect, Marc Evonitz. Miles’ text goes on to argue that it was Evonitz, not Rice, that committed the murders, and makes a compelling case for Evonitz’s guilt.
Miles’ account of the murder’s, the investigation, and her careful detailing of the treacherous politics of the National Park Service are expert. I learned so much from this book about hiking culture, the formation of national parks, the duties involved in the jobs of park rangers, and the many crimes that take place in and around national parks. Most alarmingly, Miles states that the “NPS and other federal land management agencies have a long history of not fully documenting illegal activities, including violent crimes” that occur on federally run park lands. This reluctantly to fully report on crime that happens in national parks means that the statistics about the number of violent crimes that occur in national parks are inaccurate. Miles highlights that many investigators of the case were fearful that people would be afraid to visit the park, stating in the beginning of the investigation that the murders were actually a murder suicide, despite the fact that the pair had been bound, gagged, and strangled. This kind of willful blindness plagued the case from the very beginning, and Miles does more than her fair share of due diligence and evaluates the investigation piece by piece, pointing reader’s away from the conclusions drawn by the botched investigation.
In one moment in the book, Miles calls one of the investigators on the case. Up until this point, this particular investigator had been very forthcoming and fair with her. But when Miles brings up the mounting evidence that suggests Rice had nothing to do with the murders, the detective explodes:
“As soon as I brought up Evonitz, the conversation ran off the tracks and exploded. Tim railed about Evonitz and amateur detectives and what he knew to be true. As I did, I paced my kitchen, sending my dogs scuttling as I tried to envision a way to diffuse whatever war had I had just detonated. Twenty minutes into the conversation, we both realized what the real problem was. “You're saying that all the work I have done for the past twenty-two years has been a total waste of time,” he insisted. I apologized and tried to explain that wasn't the case. But in a way, it was. And we both knew it. Before that moment, I had never understood how much the case, which is really to say how much Lollie and Julie and their families, had meant to Tim and what it would mean if he was wrong.”
This excerpt is particularly important because it explains, partially, why this case has remained unsolved for so long, and why the wrong man almost went to prison for it. It is not just that investigators like Tim were afraid to be wrong and felt indebted to the victim’s families, Trailed insists, but that they were motivated by the fact that they had zero leads. This was a murder that was committed in the open air of back country. Most of the physical evidence was destroyed by the natural processes of the bush before the bodies were even found. The investigation turned fully in the direction of Rice because he was all they had. Trailed does an excellent job of displaying the confirmation blindness of the investigators, and also their desperate and very human desire to solve this crime for the families.
These details alone make this book worth reading, but what really put it over the top for me were all the personal details that Miles includes. Trailed possesses an I’ll be Gone in the Dark like quality: Miles is very honest about her own experiences as a survivor of sexual assault and her descent into obsession over the case. Miles begins her reporting by feeling wary about taking on the story. She explains that she has seen other writers eaten up by difficult subject matter, and she admits that she is afraid of this happening to her. Despite her fears, she asks for the permission of the families of Winans and Williams to write her book. I really appreciated her thoughtfulness not only to ask for permission from the victims’ families, but also to admit her fears going in. At the end of the book, Miles’ reflection on the process speaks volumes:
“Writing this book has taken every toll I feared it would. For more than four years, the story of Julie and Lollie and women like them has consumed me. It's depleted my bank account and savings. Along the way, I've compensated with alcohol more than I'm sure is healthy. I've put demands on a domestic relationship that are impossible to justify. Other relationships have suffered as well, particularly those with my immediate family after I first began writing about my own sexual assault.”
Miles’ frank depiction of the toll the process has taken on her is extremely brave, and it picks up on something Michelle McNamara’s beautiful book and terrible death have brought into the forefront: what is the toll of writing books like I’ll be Gone in the Dark and Trailed? As important as these books are, and as courageous as these women are for going down these deep, dark, rabbit holes, we cannot forget the toll these investigations take on individual lives. I think this is going to continue to be an important conversation in true crime as more and more authors are reflecting upon what it is to consume and investigate such brutal material. Despite the difficulty of bringing this material into the world, the result is a beautiful, sad, brave, expert account of the extinguishing of two women’s lives and the fallout. This book is well worth your time.

I found this book to be quite interesting - from the start to the finish. The author describes everything so well that you can feel as if you are there. Her passion with this terrible case is very obvious and I might add, awesome! I love to see cold cases come alive, and she gave this story such life! I want to read it again, as it was a lot to digest. But I do recommend this book, especially if you like cold cases or hearing how one person helped these girls to not be forgotten.

Years ago, I voraciously read true crime books and watched both true crime shows and fictional shows like Criminal Intent and Cold Case. In more recent years, I have had less of an interest in knowing the gory details up close, but forensic science and criminal investigations still fascinate me. TRAILED is no exception-I was pulled in immediately by the excellent writing as Miles lays out the nitty-gritty details of this tragic case, bringing the reader into Lollie and Julie's world and the impact their lives and deaths had on their families and friends. The author also shares new theories on the suspect, explains why the authorities may have gotten it wrong, and examines the long history of violence against women in America's national parks. Along the way, she shares some of her own personal experiences as a hiker and outdoors enthusiast, and shows how even objective journalists can get caught up way too deep in their research. Highly recommended.

Although I'm not the confident rock climber & whitewater kayaker my youngest sister is, I have a fair amount of my own experience as far as hiking trails, building tents, starting campfires, and taking the occasional squat behind some trees. I grew up exploring outdoor wilderness areas with family & friends, and for the most part, excepting the occasional closer-than-planned encounter with a fanged predator, I've felt safe; however, Kathryn Miles's latest book suggests that a greater degree of apprehension might be merited.

Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders focuses on the murder of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans, a queer couple killed in 1996 while backpacking in Shenandoah National Park, and follows Miles' path exploring the history & reporting on the current state of this investigation. She provides an effective portrait of the fantastic potential and tragic loss that these two outdoorswomen represent. Her narrative traces the progress but also potential missteps made by investigating authorities, due to misconceptions about the LGBT+ community, the effect of insufficient funding for adequate park staff, and, most surprisingly, the existence of a fairly intense political pressure to close the case, whatever that required during the early 2000's. Finally, Miles is also frank about the oft-frustrated, anxiety-stricken months months authoring this title required, an element of this book that I think prevents its reduction to a standard true crime tale (which I suspect might be a dividing factor among reviews).

Recommended particularly for my true crime occupied friends
.
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Happy belated #PubDay to TRAILED: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles {#gifted from @algonquinbooks}! In the same vein as I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK by Michelle McNamara, this nonfiction story follows Miles determined journey to solve a cold case from 1996 - the murder of Julie and Lollie, a couple, while they were backpacking in Shenandoah National Park.

This book made me so frustrated for a variety of reasons. First, it shared a lot of fascinating information about crime in national parks and, particularly, towards women while they were just trying to enjoy nature. As a self-proclaimed national park junkie and lover of hiking, this just made me incredibly sad and I felt really vulnerable while reading it. However, Miles also did a great job at detailing some of the initatives that grassroot organizations and various people have done to "take back" the outdoors and outdoor activity for women.

As far as the crime goes, this is a great example of how law enforcement can seem to get caught up in the "we don't want to be publicly wrong" mindset, to the point where they refuse to investigate or test other theories and evidence, or persue other leads. Again, frustrating. However, Miles did a great job at shifting through all the information, the various leads and potential connections to other crimes, and also giving us a humane picture into the two victims, their own stories and their passions.

True crime lovers will definitely want to grab a copy of TRAILED, which is out now!

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders

Author: Kathryn Miles

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Diversity: Queer characters

Recommended For...: nonfiction, true crime, mystery

Publication Date: May 3, 2022

Genre: Nonfiction True Crime

Age Relevance: 18+ (homophobia, murder, violence, gore, sexual assault, rape, language, hate crimes, eating disorders)

Explanation of Above: The book is about murders and there is violence and gore shown in the book. There are also mentions of sexual assault, rape, hate crimes, and eating disorders as well. There is some homophobia in the book and there is cursing.

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Pages: 320

Synopsis: A riveting deep dive into the unsolved murder of two free-spirited young women in the wilderness, a journalist's obsession, and a new theory of who might have done it

In May 1996, Julie Williams and Lollie Winans were brutally murdered while backpacking in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, adjacent to the world-famous Appalachian Trail. The young women were skilled backcountry leaders who had met—and fallen in love—the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. But despite an extensive joint investigation by the FBI, the Virginia police, and National Park Service experts, the case remained unsolved for years.

In early 2002, and in response to mounting political pressure, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he would be seeking the death penalty for Darrell David Rice—already in prison for assaulting another woman—in the first capital case tried under new, post-9/11 federal hate crime legislation. But two years later, the Department of Justice quietly suspended its case against Rice, and the investigation has since grown cold. Did prosecutors have the right person?

Journalist Kathryn Miles was a professor at Lollie Winans's wilderness college in Maine when the 2002 indictment was announced. On the 20th anniversary of the murder, she began looking into the lives of these adventurous women—whose loss continued to haunt all who had encountered them—along with the murder investigation and subsequent case against Rice. As she dives deeper into the case, winning the trust of the victims’ loved ones as well as investigators and gaining access to key documents, Miles becomes increasingly obsessed with the loss of the generous and free-spirited Lollie and Julie, who were just on the brink of adulthood, and at the same time, she discovers evidence of cover-ups, incompetence, and crime-scene sloppiness that seemed part of a larger problem in America’s pursuit of justice in national parks. She also becomes convinced of Rice’s innocence, and zeroes in on a different likely suspect.

Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders is a riveting, eye-opening, and heartbreaking work, offering a braided narrative about two remarkable women who were murdered doing what they most loved, the forensics of this cold case, and the surprising pervasiveness and long shadows cast by violence against women in the backcountry.

Review: For the most part this was an ok book. I thought it did good to go through the murders and to show what really happened. I liked the true crime aspect of it. The character development was good and the world building was also well done.

However, I thought this was a weird book because it spends a lot of the time talking about the author and her life but the premise of the book really is about the murders. I really would have liked it to put more of the murder in the focal point than the author’s story.

Verdict: It was ok.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Press for gifting me both a digital and physical ARC of this true crime book and allowing me to participate in the blog tour - 4.5 stars!

In 1996, Julie Williams and Lollie Winans were brutally murdered while backpacking in the Shenandoah National Park, adjacent to the Appalachian Trail. The two were experienced outdoor backcountry leaders and were happily in love. But no one was ever found to be their killer and the case went cold. In 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft used the case as the country's first federal hate crime death penalty case, charing Darrell Rice, already in prison for another crime. Two years later, charges against him were suspended.

Kathryn Miles is herself an experienced outdoors person and was a professor at Unity College, where Lollie attended. On the 20th anniversary, she started looking into the case and it soon became an obsession.

She discovered so many police and ranger investigative errors and apparent coverups, as well as suspect biases that never looked at other suspects. This is an exhaustive look into the case, the fear it invoked for women to be in the national parks where they should feel safe, the women involved, their families and the science behind DNA and evidence. Unfortunately, it remains a cold case but this book should be held up as a reason for more eyes on this case.

Highly recommended reading for true crime and forensic science fans.

I was commuting to work in 1996 when the news from the local NPR station came on and with it the reporting of the murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams in Shenandoah National Park. The Park, which is around 90 minutes away, is a place my friends I went hiking often, where I took my elderly mother for a scenic drive, where a friend and I even hitchhiked when the destination of our hike placed us too far from our car to walk before night fell. The last thing I expected to ever hear was that two young women were preyed upon there, where I had, as a young woman, always felt safe. To say that the event captured my attention would be an understatement.

Now, Kathryn Miles in her exceedingly well-researched and written Trailed introduces us to Lollie Winans and Julie Williams and their love of the outdoors, to the different types of hikers who use the Appalachian trail, and to the number of young women, and in some cases men, who were murdered at the time in nearby areas in Virginia and whose cases have never been solved.

Along the way, Miles also raises the issue of how much crime, especially murders, are committed in our national parks and which are covered up, just as the head in Shenandoah hoped to do until the news of the murders broke. The knowledge that authorities choose to cover up crime so that it doesn’t affect the number of visitors to the national parks is disheartening to say the least. And for young women, who believe that they are safe walking along trails as long as they respect the wildlife around them, this is especially unsavory.

Miles has obviously spent a lot of time researching the Shenandoah murders as well as the ones that occurred outside the park (the Colonial Parkway murders) and the notorious Route 29 Stalker. When she uncovers intentional cover ups, rangers ignoring or rejecting eyewitness accounts, and the like, the reader can’t help but feel dismay, anger, sadness. Perhaps that was the most amazing thing to me as a reader of Trailed was how emotional I felt reading about the apathy, arrogance, and/or ruthlessness of some of the individuals–typically men–involved.

While Trailed would be an obvious fit for any true crime junkie, it should also be enlightening reading for anyone who considers trails in the national parks to be safe places to take a hike. Well written, insightful as well as a beautiful tribute to the two women whose lives were taken too soon, while doing something they loved, Trailed is a gripping read.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love a great investigative read. This book had me hooked, it reminded me of the author from “I be gone in the dark.” This author is not giving up in finding out who murdered these women. I know I am not the only one who wishes this was a documentary. Maybe because I am a true crime lover and reading those types of books makes my heart beat faster??? I don’t know, but I do know is that this book kept me up at night, what this man did to these women was horrible, and I even cried a few times because these were young women with so many years ahead of them. This authors style made us get to know these women enough that their loss was also a loss for us as the readers. Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I believe that true crime writing, in which the victims are women, typically has greater depth, nuance, and sense of responsibility to the lives and life stories of the victims when the author is also a woman. Miles' treatment of the Shenandoah murders of 1996 reaffirms this belief with an interwoven personal narrative and respectfully considerate approach to the storytelling. As a resident of Northern Virginia and frequent visitor to Shenandoah National Park, I was already familiar with the generalities of this crime. I was, however, unfamiliar with the contextual criminal environments of, in, and around America's wilderness spaces and Shenandoah specifically at the time. And, I was unprepared for the deeply emotional response I had to this book - a side-effect of the author's deep and broad research, compelling and well-paced writing, and what felt like an underlying sense of duty to inform other women about crime statistics and give voice to the stories and experiences of other women, in addition to those of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams. Trailed is also a bit of an indictment of the criminal justice system and the paralyzing red tape and patriarchal culture of federal agencies. I was reminded of Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark while reading Trailed, and am certain I'll see Shenandoah - and other wilderness areas - through different eyes in the future.

I generally like true crime best when it’s written by a woman, especially if the victim(s) are women.

That is the case in Trailed so I felt like I was predisposed to like the book and for the most part, I did.

Kathryn Miles certainly put a lot of effort and thought into solving the case. Almost too much effort as she describes the rabbit holes she goes down (looking up uniforms from local places in the late 1990s, watching hours of disturbing pornography because of some strange picture of an imprint at the crime scene) and her mental health really seems to suffer. She decides to learn how to shoot a gun and seems to worry people are going to break into her home. She talks a lot about how people can hide their criminal activity and how she wouldn’t know if someone close to her was a serial killer.

My main issue with the book was that it was sort of disjointed. It takes to the 75% mark to get a retelling of the events leading up to the death of Julianne Williams and Laura Winans (aka Julie and Lollie as she referred to them through the book). Why wasn’t this earlier in the book? She sprinkles information about the women throughout the book, the unusual, outdoorsy college they attended, their interest in hiking, and encouraging other women hikers but takes a very long time to get a full picture of the women and what happened at the time they went on their last trip together. I hadn’t even realized they had been separated at some point and apparently using the trip to reconnect in some way.

A lot of the book is about miscarriages of justice and how certain pieces of evidence against the main suspect seemed to have been taken completely out of context. His lawyers truly believed he was innocent. It also tells the background of some hate crime legislation and how it was politically important to have the murder of two blonde, white lesbians not only be solved but considered a hate crime. He ultimately had charges dropped because of other DNA evidence in the scene but the police did not seem to have tested it against who the Innocence Project people feel is a better suspect.

A minor quibble but I don’t think she ever talked about how anyone would know these two women were gay. I would think many people in heteronormative 1990s America would assume they were just two friends hiking together as that is very common. Women often hike in pairs because we are told it is safer. But unless they told people about their sexuality, I would think that most people they randomly encountered wouldn’t think about it at all. They were hiking; not staying in one place or socializing to any great degree. A small point but one that points to how odd their murder was swept up in the “wave” of awareness of anti-gay violence in the late 1990s. When she finally gets to what was going on in their lives and their relationship leading up to the trip it doesn’t even seem clear that they went on the trip as a couple. Yes, hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community happen and are horrible but two women having been in a previous romantic relationship together is not something that is always readily apparent during a brief chance encounter with strangers. These women only had the tiniest contact with strangers on their trip. It seems strange that it was so fixated on as a motive and I would have liked to have seen more reflection on that.

She was very upset by the murder rate in these large parks and maybe it’s the Baltimore in me but the numbers didn’t see that unexpected if you consider the millions of people who visit these parks and how remote many of the areas in these parks are. I honestly think the number must be artificially low. Not that any murder is acceptable but when you have many people in very remote and isolated areas, it does seem prime for crime. She said we wouldn’t accept a similar rate of murder at Disneyland and maybe not but Disneyland has more security and every corner in monitored. You can’t expect that level of surveillance at a rural public park. She also talked about how park numbers were artificially high because if you left a park and came back the same day, you are counted twice. How many people actually do that? Many national parks have caps that wouldn’t allow you to return anyway. In my experience at state and national parks people pack meals/supplies and plan to stay at least the day. Are people really coming and going multiple times a day and driving up the rates? She really focuses on this in a strange way.

There were just a few details and leaps in logic (or lack of logic) along these lines that stood out to me. She spent a lot of time dwelling on things like a possible indent in a sleeping bag but doesn’t think too deeply about other details she includes yet dismisses for what seems like no reason. Early on in the book she shares a story of a park ranger tearfully remembering seeing a “pot” of uneaten couscous filled with rainwater at the scene and dog food–clearly distressed at the idea that these women and their dog were probably getting ready to have a meal when they were attacked. She then says that says their meal wasn’t in the crime scene photos so he must be confused. She makes the point of the fragility of human memory and sort of condescendingly discredits him a bit but later she talks about waterlogged macaroni spilling out of a bag and upturned dog bowls being on the scene. Isn’t it obvious that is what he was talking about? Macaroni and couscous are both small white shapes of pasta that would have been sitting out in the rain for days. Dogs get fed in bowls. It had been decades and I can’t imagine he spent a huge amount of time studying their food to figure out the exact shape of the pasta when the cause of death was readily apparent. How many murder victims could this man have come across as a ranger? It was not a leap in logic to think that if the women had food out and the dog bowls out they were getting ready to eat. The point of sharing the couscous memory was, I would think, to illustrate the distress of the man who saw the crime scene. Why be so dismissive of that by saying he’s misremembering that, throwing the whole firsthand account into doubt only to talk about uneaten pasta and dog bowls being on the scene later?

I don’t think the very jumbled and nonlinear format did the book any favors. It read like the author’s research journal and I had the strong feeling things were written about when they happened or occurred to her rather than in a way that made sense and provided a narrative anyone outside of the case could follow. I ended up having to Google various aspects of the case to connect some pieces and clarify some details. I’ve never had to do that in any book I’ve read before. I truly think she was writing the book as she investigated and didn’t go back to make sure it made sense or was the best way to present the information. It felt like she only knew the broad strokes at the beginning and then finally was able to interview people about their life leading up to their deaths about 3/4 of the way into her investigation. Where are the editors?

She did do a good job of pointing out some of the bizarre missteps of the park service investigator including their odd insistence on a particular death day despite witness testimony that seemed solid. The waitress who said their food came with breakfast meats that the women said they didn’t want but asked if it could be wrapped up for their dog was discredited by an investigator because the women were vegetarian despite the waitress’ clear description of their quirky appearance and apparent discussion of their vegetarianism. He thought she was influenced by posters, which does seem less than likely. The investigator also quibbled over odd details like dark blue vs royal blue for a jacket or the shade of jeans or the weight of their dog. So strange and a good point to how odd the investigation was. All of this was important because of the waitress had seen the women then their suspect couldn’t have done it because he was in Annapolis.

I do think the book gave back some humanity and depth to the women and eventually, we do get a picture of who they were. I liked how she showed how broken the justice system is and how people can be accused and imprisoned for crimes that they didn’t commit. I also think a stronger editor was needed to make sure the story was readable. I really had to press through parts and started to be tempted to take notes myself, information was so scattered in the book.

All in all, well worth it if you are interested in the case and failures of the justice system.

This is an in depth, heartbreaking book about the murders of two young women who were back packing, and about the issues all too common in the American justice system.

I had of course heard of one of the murder cases mentioned in this book, but not of the deaths of Julie and Lollie. Their story, and the story of how a tangle of jurisdictions and bias on the part of the investigators was both moving and rage inducing. I think the author did a great job of bringing Julie and Lollie to life for readers as well as moving through the investigative processes and mis-steps without undue bias herself. It was a journey for the author, not unlike a backpacking trip where you deal with unexpected conditions, come upon hidden vistas and find moments of clarity.

Violent acts perpetrated in wilderness areas is a terrifying concept, and cases like this one, where the killer was not caught, has a massive impact on everyone's ability to enjoy wild spaces.