Hiker Missing in Tennessee — Found 6 Years Later in Old Tank Near Camp
For six long years, an old iron tank buried in the ground at an abandoned Boy Scout camp remained a silent sarcophagus. In 2019, workers contracted to dismantle the crumbling buildings began cleaning the area. Their task was to dismantle and remove the debris left over from decades of summer camps and excursions. One of the objects, a large refrigerated tank for storing ice and water, proved too heavy to move. Using a cutting tool, they opened the rusty metal lid. The air filled with a thick, nauseating smell of decomposition.
Inside, among the decomposed remnants of fabric and debris, lay a human skeleton. The bones, darkened by time and moisture, were intertwined with remnants of clothing that had long lost their color and shape.
The workers immediately stopped what they were doing and called the police. They did not yet know they had just solved a missing person case that had remained unresolved for six years. They were unaware they were facing the remains of Amanda Brown, a 29-year-old tourist. To understand how the human remains ended up sealed in a metal tank in the heart of the Cherokee National Forest, we must go back six years to July 2013.
Amanda Brown, 29, was an experienced hiker. Hiking was not just a hobby for her; it was part of her lifestyle. She grew up hearing stories about conquering nature and spent her youth exploring nearby trails on weekends. For her, solo excursions were a way to test her strength, clear her mind, and be alone with nature.
She carefully planned each route, studying maps and weather conditions, and always carried the necessary equipment. In the summer of 2013, she planned a multi-day solo hike through one of the most picturesque and challenging areas of the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee. This forest covers over 650,000 acres, known for its dense underbrush, steep slopes, and unpredictable weather conditions.
Amanda chose a route that would take her a few days to complete. She planned to take the less popular trails to avoid large crowds and fully enjoy the solitude. A week before the trip, Amanda Brown finished all her preparations. She bought new hiking boots, checked the condition of her tent and sleeping bag, and purchased freeze-dried food for five days, with a small reserve.
Her backpack was equipped with everything she needed: a water filtration system, a first aid kit, maps of the area, a compass, a satellite phone for emergency communications, and her trusty digital camera that she loved to use to capture the landscape. On July 22, 2013, she said goodbye to her family. That night, she made her last phone call to her mother.
During the 15-minute conversation, Amanda informed her that she had safely arrived in a small town on the edge of a national forest and would stay in a motel for the night. Once again, she listed her route, named the checkpoints, and informed her that her expected return date was July 27.
She was very excited, full of enthusiasm for the upcoming hike, and assured her mother that she would be careful and would contact her as soon as she had mobile coverage again. That was the last time her family heard her voice. Early in the morning on July 23, 2013, Amanda Brown parked her silver sedan in a small parking lot at the beginning of a trail known as Dear Creek Trail.
That morning, the weather was clear and warm, and meteorologists predicted several days without precipitation. Around 8 AM, another hiker saw her, a middle-aged man who was finishing his morning hike. According to him, a young woman with a large backpack got out of her car, adjusted her shoelaces, slung her backpack over her shoulder, nodded at him, and confidently ventured into the forest.
He was the last person to see Amanda Brown alive and well. She entered the woods, and from that moment on, she disappeared without a trace. The first few days of her absence did not cause much concern for her family. Everyone knew her experience and understood that small delays could occur in nature.
In most of the Cherokee National Forest, there was no mobile phone coverage, so they did not expect her to call before the scheduled return date. July 27 came and went, but Amanda did not call. On July 28, her phone still had no coverage. By the afternoon of July 29, two days after her expected return, her mother, unable to contain her anxiety, contacted the sheriff’s office.
She reported her daughter missing and provided all the information she had, including the make and license plate number of the car, a detailed description of Amanda’s route, and her physical characteristics. From that moment on, the official search began. The first step taken by the sheriff’s office after receiving the missing persons report was to check the parking lot at the start of the Dear Creek Trail.
Early on the morning of July 30, a sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene. Among several cars, he easily spotted Amanda Brown’s silver sedan. The vehicle was locked, and on the passenger seat, there was a road map of Tennessee and an empty water bottle.
A visual inspection revealed no signs of forced entry or struggle. The car appeared as if its owner had left it there just a few hours earlier. The presence of the vehicle in the parking lot was the first physical confirmation that Amanda had entered the forest and, for unknown reasons, had not returned. This fact served as the basis for the immediate deployment of a large-scale search and rescue operation.
The command center was established right at the foot of the trail. The operation involved the sheriff’s department, National Forest Service rangers, and several volunteer search and rescue teams from neighboring counties specializing in mountainous and forested terrain. The route map provided by Amanda’s mother became the central reference point for the search teams.
The area she had planned to traverse in four days was divided into squares. The initial phase of the search focused directly on the trail and surrounding areas within a 100-meter radius. Dozens of people lined up in a chain and methodically combed every meter of terrain. They searched ravines, brush, and looked under fallen trees.
Their task was to find any trace: a lost object, a fragment of clothing, a shoe print off the trail. However, the first day of searching, which lasted until dusk, yielded no results. The forest seemed to have completely swallowed the woman. The next day, July 31, additional resources were brought in to assist with the operation. A helicopter was sent to survey Amanda’s presumed route. However, the dense forest cover made aerial reconnaissance ineffective. From above, only tree tops and some open areas could be seen, but it was almost impossible to spot a person beneath that green canopy.
In parallel with the ground search, detectives began interviewing anyone who might have seen Amanda. They re-contacted the hiker who had seen her at the trailhead. He could not add anything new to his statement. Detectives checked the records of nearby campgrounds and motels but found no information that could shed light on her plans or contacts. Ground search teams faced extreme difficulties.
The terrain in this part of the Cherokee National Forest was extremely rugged. Steep ascents gave way to sharp descents, and rocky outcrops alternated with swampy lowlands. The warm, humid weather exhausted the searchers, and the dense vegetation considerably slowed their progress. By the end of the second day of searching, not a single clue had been found. There were no traces or evidence that Amanda had deviated from the trail or had an accident. Concern grew. Common situations, such as a fall, an injury, or disorientation, usually leave traces, but here there were none.
On August 1, search dogs joined the operation. Dogs specially trained to search for people by scent were released from Amanda’s car. In theory, they should have picked up her scent and guided the rescuers along her route. Several dogs showed interest and followed the trail for about 3 km through the forest. However, at one point, in a small open area where the trail crossed the dry bed of an old stream, all the dogs lost the trail one after another. They circled around, became confused, and could not determine the direction to follow. The trainers repeated the attempt several times with different dogs, but the result was the same. Amanda Brown’s trail ended so abruptly that it was as if she had vanished at that point.
This anomaly puzzled investigators. The search continued for another week. The radius of the operation was significantly expanded. Rescuers searched abandoned cabins, home shelters, and even caves located several kilometers from the main route. Divers checked the bottoms of small lakes and rivers in the forest, but it was in vain. On August 8, after 10 days of continuous and fruitless searching, the active phase of the operation was officially suspended. Resources had been exhausted, and the area that could be searched had been meticulously combed.
The operation’s officials concluded that if Amanda was in the area, alive or dead, she would have already been found. The case transitioned from a search and rescue operation to a missing persons investigation. The sheriff’s department distributed flyers with Amanda’s photo throughout the state and neighboring regions. Her name was entered into the national missing persons database.
For Amanda Brown’s family, the most difficult period began—a period of uncertainty. The forest remained silent. There were no new witnesses, no ransom demands, no clues. It seemed that the Cherokee National Forest would never reveal its secret. Investigators began to work on four main theories of what had happened.
The first and most likely, from a statistical point of view, was the accident theory. It was assumed that Amanda might have fallen into a ravine hidden by vegetation, fallen into a crevice, or suffered a serious injury far from the trail, where search teams could not find her. However, the magnitude of the search contradicted this theory. It was impossible to comb every square meter of the vast forest, but the probability that experienced rescuers and dogs would not find a single trace, no backpack, no tent, no body, was extremely low.
The second version was a wild animal attack. The Cherokee National Forest has a significant population of black bears. Detectives consulted biologists and wildlife experts. Experts unanimously stated that this version was unlikely. Black bear attacks on humans are sporadic and almost always provoked. Moreover, such an attack would have inevitably left numerous traces: torn clothing and equipment, blood, and characteristic damage to the remains. The complete absence of such evidence made this theory untenable.
The third version that the investigation had to consider was voluntary disappearance. Detectives conducted a thorough review of Amanda Brown’s past. They examined her financial transactions over the past few years. There were no significant withdrawals or unusual transfers. Her bank accounts and credit cards remained intact since her disappearance. Analyzing her emails, messages, and social media activity revealed no indication that she was planning to start a new life. She had not sold her property, had not said goodbye to her friends, and had a stable job and future plans. Everyone who knew Amanda agreed that she would never have done such a thing to her family. This version was dismissed as unfounded.
That left the fourth and most disturbing theory: kidnapping and murder. The complete lack of traces and the inexplicable disappearance of the trail for the dogs could indicate that Amanda was forced or tricked into getting into a vehicle at the point where her trail ended. The problem with this theory was the complete lack of suspects and motives. Amanda was an ordinary tourist with no known enemies. It could have been a random and motive-less attack, but the investigation had no leads to follow.
A few kilometers east of where Amanda’s trail was last detected was the abandoned Yahula camp, a summer camp for Boy Scouts. The camp had closed in 2011 due to financial difficulties and had been abandoned since then. Its grounds, covering several dozen acres, were not included in the main search area as they were far from the route Amanda was reported to have taken.
During the search operation, patrols briefly inspected the perimeter of the camp. They ensured that the doors were locked with chains and found no recent tire tracks on the access road. Without a search warrant or reasonable grounds to conduct a thorough search of a private property, albeit abandoned, the police could not proceed. Thus, this location remained outside the scope of the main investigation. Years 2014, 2015, and 2016 passed. The case of Amanda Brown gathered dust in the files. Each year on the anniversary of her disappearance, local news channels aired a brief report to remind viewers of the mystery.
Amanda’s family maintained a website dedicated to her search and periodically appealed to the public for any information, but they received no calls. For most people, her story became one of many sad legends that envelop the wild corners of the Appalachians. Meanwhile, the abandoned Yahula camp continued to deteriorate. The paint on the wooden cabins was peeling, the roofs were sagging, and nature was gradually reclaiming its territory.
Among those who knew every corner of this camp were its former employees, counselors, and instructors who had spent more than one summer there. They remembered the location of all the buildings and secret paths and were aware of the existence of service facilities hidden from the view of regular visitors. One such facility was an old refrigeration tank installed in the mid-20th century. It was located behind the dining hall, surrounded by thick underbrush, and was used to store large blocks of ice in the days when electric refrigerators were not so common.
After the camp closed, only a few people remembered its existence. It silently rusted in the shadows of the trees, guarding its terrible secret inside, until in 2019 the new owners of the land decided to thoroughly clean the area. On October 11, 2019, a team of workers arrived at the site of the old Yahula camp. Their task was to completely dismantle all remaining structures and clear the land for new construction. Over several days, they demolished the dilapidated wooden houses and dismantled the farm buildings. Behind the main dining hall, among wild grapevines and ivy, they discovered a large steel tank partially buried in the ground.
According to old camp blueprints, this was an industrial ice storage tank. The structure was made of thick steel plate and weighed several tons. Preliminary estimates indicated that attempts to move the tank with heavy machinery were unsuccessful. The team leader decided to cut it into pieces to facilitate transport. One of the workers, using an angle grinder with a cutting disc, began cutting the thick metal cover welded to the base at several points. When the disc cut through the last weld and the cover shifted, compressed air escaped from inside, and an unbearably sharp and sweet smell of decomposition spread throughout the area.
The workers who looked inside saw a mass of decomposed organic matter, trash, and human bones at the bottom of the tank. Work immediately stopped. The foreman led his men to a safe distance and called 911. Twenty minutes later, the first patrol from the county sheriff’s office arrived at the scene.
The sheriff’s deputy, after confirming the presence of human remains, declared the area a crime scene. Yellow caution tape was placed around the tank and the surrounding area. Soon detectives, a forensic expert, and a crime scene investigation team arrived. The meticulous work of extracting and documenting the contents of the tank began. The scene was treated as a sealed capsule that had preserved not only the remains but also potential evidence, protecting them from the elements for many years.
The forensic team worked slowly and methodically. First, they photographed and recorded the tank and its contents as they found them. Then, using special tools similar to those used by archaeologists, they began to remove the contents layer by layer. Every object, every fragment of bone or tissue was carefully removed, described, photographed, and packaged in a separate evidence container.
At the bottom of the tank, under a layer of leaves and compressed wet debris, a nearly complete human skeleton was discovered. The bones had a dark brown hue due to prolonged contact with decomposition products and rust. Around the skeleton were remnants of thick fabric, presumably denim, and fragments of lighter material, possibly a shirt or jacket. The feet of the skeleton still bore the remains of sturdy boots with thick, corrugated soles that matched the description of hiking boots.
Several small metal objects were also found among the remains: a belt buckle, several buttons, and a very corroded zipper. All recovered materials, including soil and debris samples from the bottom of the tank, were sent to a laboratory for analysis. The remains were transferred to the office of the state chief medical examiner for anthropological examination and identification. Detectives working at the scene immediately consulted the missing persons files in the area.
The case of Amanda Brown, who disappeared in 2013 just a few kilometers from the camp, became the primary theory. Her dental records were immediately requested. A forensic anthropologist began examining the skeleton. The examination of the pelvic and skull bones allowed for a high degree of probability to determine that the remains belonged to a Caucasian woman aged between 25 and 35 years.
At the time of death, the height estimated from the length of the femur also matched Amanda Brown’s data. Definitive confirmation of the identification was obtained by comparing the post-mortem X-rays of the jaws with Amanda’s dental records. The match was 100%.
Six years later, Amanda Brown was officially declared found. The next and most important task was to determine the cause of death. The pathologist carefully examined each bone for signs of ante-mortem trauma. No characteristic fractures from a fall, nor traces of bullets or sharp objects were found. However, upon examining the hyoid bone, a small horseshoe-shaped bone located at the front of the neck, a fine but clear fracture was discovered. This type of injury is classic and one of the most convincing pieces of evidence of death by strangulation.
The conclusion of the forensic expert was unequivocal. Amanda Brown had been murdered; she had been strangled. This discovery finally moved the case from the category of unresolved disappearances to a murder investigation. Investigators now had not only a victim and a cause of death but also a specific location where the body was hidden.
All the weight of the investigation focused on a key question: Who else, besides Amanda, was at the abandoned Yahula camp in the summer of 2013? And who among those people could have known about the existence of the old refrigerated tank hidden from prying eyes? Detectives began compiling a comprehensive list of all former employees and instructors of the camp from the last years of its operation.
Detectives analyzed the personal records of dozens of people who had worked at the camp in different years. They were particularly interested in those who held positions that required a deep knowledge of the area, such as caretakers, custodians, and senior instructors. The list was cross-referenced with databases to identify which former employees lived near the Cherokee National Forest during the summer of 2013. Soon, one name caught the investigators’ attention: Martin Grey, a 57-year-old man who had worked at the camp as a wilderness survival instructor for over 15 years until its closure in 2011.
After the camp closed, he continued living in a small town 30 miles from the entrance to the national forest. Other former employees contacted by detectives described Grey as a solitary and unsociable man who preferred to spend time alone and knew the forest like the back of his hand. He was considered an expert in local flora and fauna and often undertook solo multi-day hikes.
Detectives invited Martin Grey to the sheriff’s office. During the initial interview, he appeared calm and composed. He confirmed that he had worked at the camp for many years but claimed that he had not returned to the site since its official closure. When shown a photo of Amanda Brown, he said he had never seen her. He stated that in July 2013, he was at home doing odd jobs. He had an alibi, but it was circumstantial and not corroborated by other witnesses. Despite his denials, Grey’s connection to the location where the body was hidden was too strong to ignore.
Based on the evidence gathered, his deep knowledge of the camp, his residence in the area at the time of the crime, and the lack of a reliable alibi, detectives obtained a search warrant for his home and surroundings. The search of Martin Grey’s house was conducted by the same forensic team that had worked at the site where the remains were found. The house was small and modest. At first glance, there was nothing suspicious about it.
However, in the basement, in a remote corner behind some old boxes, investigators found a locked wooden chest. Grey claimed he had lost the key many years ago. The forensic team opened the chest. Inside were old hiking maps, several knives, and personal items from his time at the camp. At the bottom, wrapped in an old flannel shirt, was a digital camera. The model and brand of the camera matched exactly with the one that Amanda Brown’s family had reported missing in their initial report. This was a crucial discovery. The camera was immediately sent to the forensic laboratory.
Experts managed to extract data from the memory card, even though it had not been used for six years. The card contained hundreds of photos. Amanda took the first ones on previous hikes. The last series of photos was taken in the Cherokee National Forest. The files were created on July 23, 2013.
Among the first photos were images of the trail landscape. These were followed by several close-up photos that only showed blurry images of the ground and leaves, as if the camera had turned on at the moment of a fall or struggle. The definitive and irrefutable proof came when the camera’s serial number was checked.
It matched exactly with the number listed in the purchase documents that Amanda’s family had kept. With this evidence, detectives arrested Martin Grey for first-degree murder. During the second interrogation, when shown the camera, he lost his composure. Faced with the irrefutable evidence linking him directly to the victim, he refused to make any further statements. Martin Grey’s trial took place in 2020. The prosecution presented the jury with a complete timeline of events. According to their version, Martin Grey encountered Amanda Brown while she was in the forest.
The motives for his actions remained unclear until the end. Taking advantage of his knowledge of the area, he lured or forcibly led her off the trail to an abandoned camp that he knew better than anyone. There, he committed the murder and then used the most reliable and discreet hiding place he could know: an old, hermetically sealed refrigeration tank.
The main evidence was Amanda’s camera, found in his house six years later. After a brief deliberation, the jury found Martin Grey guilty of kidnapping and first-degree murder. The court sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The mystery of Amanda Brown’s disappearance had been solved. The justice that her family had waited for during six long years had finally prevailed.
