“Tourist Couple Vanished Without a Trace—Three Years Later, Their Skeletons Were Found Dressed for Death in EMPTY COFFINS of an ABANDONED CHAPEL: The Smoky Mountains’ Most Twisted Secret”

The abandoned wooden chapel in the Smoky Mountains had stood for decades as a silent relic—its peeling paint and moss-choked roof a forgotten landmark for hikers who sometimes glimpsed it through the trees. But on a humid June afternoon, its silence was shattered. When searchers pried open two dusty coffins at the altar, they uncovered what law enforcement, families, and an entire state had been searching for over three years: the final resting place of David and Joanna Ellison, the young couple whose disappearance had become Tennessee’s most chilling unsolved mystery.

How did two bright, beloved tourists—an engaged couple from Nashville—wind up as skeletons, dressed as if for a funeral, inside handmade coffins in a ruined chapel? Who had prepared their bodies for “eternal sleep”? And what darkness had been hiding in the mountains, waiting for the innocent to cross its path?

To understand the horror, you have to start at the beginning—before the headlines, before the search parties, before the Smokies became a place of dread.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, spring 2003. The town was small, ringed by the blue-green haze of the mountains, a place where everyone knew each other and strangers stood out. David Ellison, 28, was a systems analyst with a gentle smile and curly hair. Joanna Foster, 26, was a web designer with bright eyes and a laugh that filled every room. They’d been together four years, recently engaged, and had come to the Smokies for a weekend hike—a private celebration before wedding chaos began.

They checked into the Mountain View Motel, a modest two-story building with ivy crawling up the porch. Dolores Parker, the owner, remembered them as “sweet, polite, in love.” On March 30th, the couple had breakfast at Dennis Diner—pancakes, coffee, laughter over a trail map. At 9:30 a.m., they drove their silver Honda Accord to the Alum Cave Trailhead. At 10:00 a.m., a ranger saw them in the parking lot—David with a green backpack, Joanna with a red one. They disappeared into the woods and were never seen alive again.\

That evening, Joanna’s parents waited for her promised call. It never came. By the next day, when David didn’t show up for work and both families couldn’t reach them, panic set in. On April 1st, police were called. Sheriff Roy Henderson took the case personally. By nightfall, search parties were combing the trails—forty people, dogs, drones, hope. They found the couple’s car, locked and undisturbed, in the parking lot. Inside: water bottles, a map, snacks. No sign of violence. Just a car waiting for its owners.

On April 3rd, a kilometer from the lot, they found Joanna’s red backpack beneath an oak tree, carefully placed—not dropped in panic. Inside: clothes, snacks, a first-aid kit. No valuables missing. No sign of struggle. The woods swallowed every other clue.

The search grew desperate. Volunteers, rangers, and even helicopters scoured the Smokies. But the mountains gave nothing back. Theories multiplied. Maybe they’d run away together, staged their disappearance. Maybe they’d been attacked. Maybe they’d gotten lost and succumbed to the elements. Detectives dug into their lives. No debts, no enemies, no secret affairs, no feuds. The only names that surfaced—Mark Davenport, a colleague with an innocent crush on Joanna, and Kyle Raymond, her ex-boyfriend—were quickly ruled out by solid alibis.

As weeks turned to months, hope faded. Flyers papered Tennessee. The parents pleaded on TV. Private investigators re-checked every lead. Gatlinburg’s easy peace was shattered; locals locked doors, tourists whispered rumors. Some said the couple was taken by a cult, others claimed sightings in distant states. But the mountains kept their secret.

By fall, the Ellison case was cold. Sheriff Henderson retired, haunted by the mystery. “Somewhere out there in those mountains is the answer,” he told reporters, “but we couldn’t find it.” Years passed. The families never gave up hope, but it grew weaker with each passing day. Memorial services replaced search parties.

Then, on June 23, 2006, everything changed.

A National Park Service team—four rangers—was inspecting remote areas after a rough winter. Five miles off the main trail, they stumbled on something hidden behind thick brush: a rotting wooden chapel, forgotten by time. Built in the 1800s, abandoned for nearly a century, it was little more than a shell. But inside, near the altar, stood two pine coffins, side by side, closed and waiting.

Jason Cole, the youngest ranger, was the first inside. The air was thick with decay. Sunbeams slanted through holes in the roof, illuminating dust and rot. The coffins were plain, unmarked, but new enough to stand out among the ruins. The rangers called the police.

Sheriff Douglas Carter arrived with his team, forensic scientists, and a medical examiner. The coffins were pried open. Inside the first: a skeleton in blue jeans and a red jacket, glasses still perched on the skull. The second: a woman’s skeleton, green t-shirt, boots, blonde hair still clinging to the scalp. Next to the bones—backpacks, sneakers, and a sense of dreadful peace. The remains were taken for DNA analysis. The match was undeniable: David and Joanna Ellison.

But the discovery only deepened the mystery. Who had placed them here? How had they died? Why had someone taken the time to dress them, lay them out, and seal them in coffins inside a ruined chapel?

Forensic analysis revealed chilling details. David’s skull was fractured—blunt force trauma, likely a hammer or heavy object. Joanna’s bones showed no obvious violence, but a fracture in her hyoid bone suggested strangulation. The bodies had been there for at least three years.

Fingerprints on the coffins, blurred by time and rain, were recovered and run through the national database. The result: Chester Hales, 59, a local recluse with a history of violence and religious fanaticism. In the 1980s, he’d served time for attacking a woman he claimed was a witch. Since then, he’d lived alone in the mountains, shunned by the town, seen only rarely by hunters and rangers.

A search party tracked Hales to a ramshackle hut five kilometers from the chapel. When police surrounded the cabin, Hales emerged—tall, wild-eyed, muttering prayers and curses. He tried to gouge out his own eyes before being overpowered. Inside the cabin, police found a Bible, candles, a cross, and a diary.

The diary was a window into madness. Pages were filled with religious ramblings, delusions of mission and purification. Hales believed the abandoned chapel was holy ground. Anyone who entered was a “sinner” to be “cleansed.” On March 30, 2003, he wrote: “Today, two people desecrated the holy place, a man and a woman. They laughed and touched the altar. God told me they must be cleansed.” He followed them from the chapel, struck David in the head, tied them up, and dragged them back. Over the next days, he preached to them, denying food and water. David died from his injury; Joanna tried to escape and was strangled. Hales built the coffins himself, placed the bodies inside, and left them as an offering—believing he had saved their souls.

The diary was the final, damning evidence.

Hales was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and desecration of remains. His trial in November 2006 drew crowds, cameras, and outrage. The prosecution presented the diary, fingerprints, and forensic evidence. Medical experts confirmed the cause of death. The defense argued insanity—Hales was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, plagued by religious delusions. But the jury saw a man who had hidden his crimes, built coffins, and evaded capture for years. He was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life without parole.

In the end, the Ellison family finally had closure, but it was a bitter, haunted peace. The funeral in Nashville was attended by hundreds—friends, family, strangers who’d followed the case for years. Linda Foster, Joanna’s mother, said: “For three years, we lived in uncertainty, hoping they were alive somewhere. Now we know the truth. It’s a terrible truth, but it’s closure.”

The chapel was demolished, the land left to the forest. But the story lingered—a warning about the darkness that can hide beneath faith, the razor-thin line between devotion and delusion, and the way even the most peaceful places can become scenes of horror.

So, how far can a person go in the name of belief? Where is the line between religiosity and obsession? For the Ellisons, for Gatlinburg, for the Smoky Mountains, the answer was written in pine coffins and whispered in the wind—a reminder that the most terrifying monsters are not always the ones we expect, and that evil, when dressed in righteousness, can hide in plain sight.

If this story chilled you, share your thoughts below. Would you have ever suspected such darkness could lurk in a place meant for peace? And do you believe faith can ever excuse the unthinkable? Subscribe for more stories that reveal the secrets hidden just beneath the surface of the everyday world.