Page 1 of 1
Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 4:44 pm
by Jeffshadows
Does anyone know anything more about the lady that committed suicide in Saguaro NP last year? All the news reported was that she parked at an unnamed trail-head and left a note in her trunk...
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 4:49 pm
by desert spirit
Hmm ... Google just finds the same article repeated everywhere. Nothing in the Star or Citizen. That's kinda odd.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 5:01 pm
by Jeffshadows
I was thinking the same...
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 5:11 pm
by PaleoRob
Anything in Saguaro's Press Release section on their website?
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 6:19 pm
by azbackpackr
Do you guys remember the mysterious disappearance back in the 90's of the woman up the Douglas Spring Trail? They looked for her for weeks. Her mother camped in a motorhome at the trailhead during that whole time.
Later on people (SAR people, etc.) figured that she really didn't disappear there at all, that someone she knew just TOLD people that's where she disappeared. She was never found, as far as I know.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 7:28 pm
by desert spirit
I wasn't here then, but that's pretty scary. It would be hard to just disappear on that trail, unless you went way up into the high country, I guess.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 12 2009 8:33 pm
by Jeffshadows
I remember my mother and her colleagues talking about that case at a happy hour on campus back then, actually. I remember everyone thinking it was strange that she parked at the equestrian trail-head, or something like that, right?
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 13 2009 7:50 am
by azbackpackr
I'm told that everyone now figures that her boyfriend offed her and dropped her down a mine shaft and then reported her late returning from a hike. He was out there with the search parties. Although they had covered an area around Juniper Basin, a day later, after they had already thoroughly searched that area, her lipstick and other items appeared by the trail near there. Later on they figured the boyfriend had surreptitiously placed them there while he was out "searching" with them. I don't know if he was ever charged with any crime, or what happened.
Anyone? Letty, were you around then?
I am not good at news searches, and I no longer am very well acquainted with anyone from SARA. People from SARA might remember and know what happened later on.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 13 2009 7:56 am
by Jeffshadows
I'll ask over at SARA. If she was really 70 years old I doubt she cleared her way into Juniper Basin with no water or gear...but I've been surprised before!
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 13 2009 11:25 am
by rushthezeppelin
Jeff MacE wrote:I'll ask over at SARA. If she was really 70 years old I doubt she cleared her way into Juniper Basin with no water or gear...but I've been surprised before!
Hey if tourists can make it from First Water to Boulder Canyon and back to Garden Valley where I run into them with only a nearly empty 20 oz bottle of water then I'm sure she could have made it out there.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 13 2009 11:47 am
by Jeffshadows
Yea, who knows?
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 14 2009 6:37 pm
by snakemarks
rushthezeppelin wrote:Hey if tourists can make it from First Water to Boulder Canyon and back to Garden Valley where I run into them with only a nearly empty 20 oz bottle of water then I'm sure she could have made it out there.
The tourists have probably already 'tossed' their other empties.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 14 2009 11:45 pm
by rushthezeppelin
snakemarks wrote:rushthezeppelin wrote:Hey if tourists can make it from First Water to Boulder Canyon and back to Garden Valley where I run into them with only a nearly empty 20 oz bottle of water then I'm sure she could have made it out there.
The tourists have probably already 'tossed' their other empties.
Most of em that I have talked to have said that's all they came out with. Then again who knows though....they could have dumped a whole half a case of aquafina back in Boulder Canyon ><
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 15 2009 7:55 am
by Jeffshadows
Well, I was debating whether to reply to this new string of discussion or not. Basically, yes - one can dehydrate one's self pretty quickly up in the GC. The trail this woman was supposedly on relentlessly climbs from the valley in Saguaro East along a completely exposed ridge with no water anywhere to be found for almost seven miles. The ridge falls west, so the afternoon sun cooks the track of the course and there are no trees to be found for shade until one starts to drop into this improved wilderness campsite about 8 miles back in. Getting roasted efforting to climb that ridge in Tucson July sun and 106F weather is very different than a group of the uninitiated wandering a couple miles down a GC trail in the fall with little water (Which isn't to say that the latter isn't foolish, either

).
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 24 2009 5:18 am
by azbackpackr
Jeff MacE wrote:I'll ask over at SARA. If she was really 70 years old I doubt she cleared her way into Juniper Basin with no water or gear...but I've been surprised before!
OK, I don't have a clue what you are talking about if you are responding to my comments. She was a young gal in her early 20's. She was probably NOT hiking in the Rincons at all. This was almost certainly a lie. This happened in probably the mid-90's.
Ok I know I did change the subject to a
different lost person, but I made that clear with my first post. I asked if anyone remembered that case. I would like to know if the boyfriend was ever charged with a crime. I am fairly certain he wasn't and that her body was never found. Most SARA people will tell you the young woman was most likely NOT hiking in the Rincons at all, as I said before. Her boyfriend probably killed her and dumped her body somewhere a LONG WAY from there, and then reported her missing. As I said before.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 24 2009 7:13 am
by Jeffshadows
The older lady was in Saguaro West, somewhere.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 24 2009 7:18 am
by azbackpackr
Did they find the older lady? I haven't kept up with this.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 24 2009 7:23 am
by azbackpackr
Someone reported on either here or another website about a body being found in a freezer in the Picketpost area near Superior. A friend of mine tried to find out about that one but came up blank. Apparently the East Valley News reported the find, but didn't follow up, according to my friend. I had asked him about it because he hikes that trail a lot. I am always after him not to keep sending me so many urban myths. He said that must have also been an urban myth...
More like NO FOLLOWUP on the part of the newspaper. Newspapers today are so unbelievably incompetent. And they wonder why they are all going out of business.
Re: Saguaro Suicide
Posted: Jan 24 2009 2:47 pm
by big_load
azbackpackr wrote:Newspapers today are so unbelievably incompetent.
That's for sure. The police blotter in our local paper recently reported one high school kid grabbing a book from another. What didn't they report on that day? Two cars being fire-bombed across the street from my house, which kept seven police cars, an ambulance, three firetrucks, and two tow trucks busy for four hours. That was over a month ago, and the incident never has been mentioned in print by that paper or either of the other two newspapers that consider this part of their local coverage area.