As anything does, it started out innocent enough. In early October, a local girl and her friends only wanted to go for a short ride up the mountain for lunch. However, her parents were still gone for the weekend, and had instructed them not to go until they got back. Determined to prove they were mature enough to handle it on their own, they went up anyway.

The girls all worked together to make the trip go as smooth as possible. They packed a simple lunch with some sandwiches and bottled juice. It was already after noon, but they still had to get dressed before they could leave. Having invited boys, the girls all still wanted to look cute. Each dressed in their favorite jeans and simple sandals. Grabbing their small bags of lunch they were off.

After they got to the top of the mountain on their four-wheelers, they stopped for lunch. The group of boys had been waiting and they enjoyed each-others company as they ate and told jokes. Noticing it was getting really late, they decided to start towards home, and packed up their things.

The group started making their way back down the mountain, but now they had too many girls on one of the four-wheelers. The five girls not in a “couple” with a boy were banished to the last four-wheeler. One of the girls on the last four-wheeler was sitting too far to the edge and her jeans were caught in the back wheel. Her unsuitable shoes and pants shredded as they were dragged down by the wheel and across the rocks. Her entire leg was covered in second and third degree burns from the exhaust and the road rash was extensive over her body. In the accident, the four-wheeler had ventured far off the trail. On top of all of this, because they were the last four-wheeler, and had so much extra weight, they were far behind the rest of their group.

It was getting colder and darker; the sun had set long ago. Panicking and needing to get help, one of the uninjured girls from the last four-wheeler ran after the rest of the group in a crazed attempt to find safety. In the dark she quickly became lost on the mountain. Unsure what to do, the others waited for a long time but she hadn’t returned and the wounds needed to be tended to. They had to abandon the four-wheeler and also the injured girl, telling her they would return soon. They began walking as far as they could down the mountain to search for the lost girl and help.

Just like the first girl to venture out of the group, they also became lost. Without light to navigate the difficult trails, they stumbled pointlessly for hours. Except for the mangled corpse of the injured girl, none of the girls from the last four-wheeler were ever found. After her body blacked out from the blood loss, she was left to rot in the brush for over a week until some hikers found her.

Obvious causes set the group for failure. They should have planned better, been more prepared. They should have dressed for the occasion. However, mystery arises when it turns out the asylum filed a missing persons report the same night, for five girls.