S1E6: What Happened to Aaron Hedges?

Summary

Blood Trails – Ep. 6: What Happened to Aaron Hedges?

Podcast: Blood Trails
Host: Jordan Sillars (MeatEater)
Air Date: December 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Blood Trails investigates the mysterious disappearance and death of Aaron Hedges, an elk hunter who vanished in Montana's Crazy Mountains in 2014. Combining original reporting, law enforcement interviews, and expert insights, host Jordan Sillars delves into what really happened in the backcountry—covering the search for Aaron, theories about his fate, and the complex web of suspicion, guilt, and wilderness survival.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Disappearance (02:23–05:28)

• Initial Mystery:
  Aaron Hedges vanished during an elk hunt with friends Joe Depew and Greg Laitner. He was last known to be headed toward a gear cache near Sunlight Lake, but never returned.
  • “The searchers later found his boots neatly placed beside a fire ring. What happened next would baffle investigators and fuel a decade of theories.” (02:06, B)
• Found Items:
  Searchers eventually found Aaron’s boots, water bladder, fire attempts, but not Aaron.
  • “It was like he'd been sucked out of his boots and into the ether.” (03:10, B)
  • “What was found and where it was found and the condition it was found in is very odd.” (03:55, D: Det. Brian Greene)

2. Setting the Scene: The Crazy Mountains & The Hunt (06:00–09:54)

• Who Was There:
  Joe, Greg, and Aaron had planned a multi-day backcountry hunt, packing in with horses and a mule.
  • “Beautiful mountain range… stand out almost like an island mountain chain.” (07:38, F: Giannis Putelis)
• Early Troubles:
  The group faced issues with an inexperienced mule and lost Aaron’s sleeping bag, leading to frustrations and gear limitations—an event identified as the beginning of the downward spiral.
  • “We eventually just get so mad, fine, you know, whatever. Like I can't make you put all this stuff on.” (12:25, G: Greg Laitner)

3. Aaron’s Struggles & Group Tension (13:28–17:26)

• Aaron’s Behavior:
  Aaron appeared angry, listless, and disinterested—possibly due to alcohol use, medication, and physical discomfort.
• Conflict:
  Significant friction, including a near physical confrontation, as Aaron refused help and failed to prepare his bow.
  • “His face was pickled. He hadn't had a haircut in forever.” (14:40, G)
• Erratic Choices:
  Aaron drunkenly attempted to approach a black bear in slippers, further worrying Greg and Joe.
  • "That was the most pathetic excuse for a stalk on an animal I've ever seen." (15:12, G)

4. The Split & Aaron’s Solo Trek (17:26–18:32)

• Decision to Leave:
  After camping in poor spirits, Aaron announced he would leave to retrieve gear alone, a nine-mile hike. The group agreed on GPS check-ins—never to see him again.
  • “As far as we know, that's the last time anyone saw Aaron alive.” (18:14, B)

5. Aaron Hedges: The Man & His Demons (18:36–22:32)

• Personal Background:
  Aaron was a husband, father, and a known alcoholic. He may have been combining alcohol and prescription Librium (for withdrawal).
  • “Christine stated that...the negative side effects she had seen in her husband Aaron, which included short temperedness and physical unbalanced, she didn't want him to go on the hunting trip.” (20:42, E)
• Friends’ Perspectives:
  Joe and Greg believed Aaron was drinking heavily and mixing medications, though some details depend solely on their accounts.

6. Lost in the Wilderness: Where Did Aaron Go? (23:04–29:35)

• The Group Hunts Elk:
  While Aaron hiked, Greg and Joe kept hunting and succeeded in killing an elk—calling Aaron on GPS radio for help.
• Critical Radio Call:
  Aaron answered but was disoriented, not knowing his location and unwilling to retrace his steps.
  • "He just said, I don't think I'm going to make it back tonight. And that was the last thing he said." (28:18, G)
• Failure to Regroup:
  Despite missing check-ins, Greg and Joe continued their hunt, moved camp, and eventually left the mountain without contacting authorities for three days.
  • “Over 72 hours passed between the time they lost contact with their friend and when they finally called Christine.” (46:03, B)

7. The Search Effort (30:41–39:51)

• Massive Rescue Attempts:
  Search and rescue was hampered by a severe snowstorm (drop from 50°F to 10°F; 18–24 inches of snow).
  • “It flipping snow, the temp dropped...In the crazies, it snowed 18 to 24 inches in one storm.” (31:02, C: Sheriff Ronneberg)
• Hindered Search:
  Joe and Greg complicated searches by returning to the cache against law enforcement advice, leaving their tracks at the site.
• Findings:
  Rescuers found Aaron’s cut hip belt, campfires, and finally his boots and water bladder, but no sign of Aaron.

8. Investigation & Suspicion (41:29–53:53)

• Why Wait to Report?
  Detectives pressed Greg and Joe on their delay in reporting, lack of search effort, and inconsistencies.
  • “Almost everything they talked was a lie. They were trying to hide what they were doing up there.” (43:32, C: Sheriff Ronneberg)
• Private Land & Poaching:
  Greg and Joe may have been hunting illegally on private land, possibly explaining deceptive behavior.
  • “The illegally harvested elk helped explain why Greg and Joe had been deceptive. But by itself, it wasn't enough to exonerate them.” (52:55, B)
• Rumors & Alibis:
  Rumors of a relationship between Joe and Aaron’s wife surfaced, but there was no evidence. Photos and GPS data ultimately matched Greg and Joe's timeline and location, making a staged disappearance or murder highly unlikely.

9. Discovery of the Body (53:58–60:48)

• Remains Found:
  In 2016, Aaron’s body (skull, mandible, bones) was found six miles east of where his boots were found, buried under brush with scattered clothes and gear.
  • “You could see the buildings of a residence two miles in front of him from that rock.” (55:14, C: Sheriff Ronneberg)
  • Cause of Death:
    Likely hypothermia. Evidence suggests paradoxical undressing; he was only a quarter mile from a road.
    • “After he passes away...a bear comes in and buries him, pushes the bank over to the top of him...” (58:42, C: Ronneberg)

10. Unanswered Questions (61:23–70:57)

• Why Leave Boots?
  Theories include drying wet boots, making a fire, paradoxical undressing from hypothermia, or switching shoes to stalk elk.
  • “I just bet you he was sitting there and some elk ran by him and he decided to go after, start stalking elk. So he changes out of his boots...puts on tennis shoes to go make a stalk…” (62:51, C)
• Role of Joe & Greg:
  Their guilt and regret resurfaced in interviews. They felt they shouldn’t have taken Aaron; Greg believed Aaron intended to detox at the gear cache.
  • “Now, I. My theory is that I think that Aaron was about to go through severe withdrawals. I know for a fact that he was running out of alcohol, and I feel like he was abusing those pills and taking way more than he should have.” (72:35, G)
  • “You know, right then should have left that elk and gone down there and looked for his ass.” (75:52, G)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What was found and where it was found and the condition it was found in is very odd. And what wasn't found is very odd.”
  — Det. Brian Greene (03:55, D)

• “We thought maybe that was best...he was coming up here to clear his head and get healthy. In my mind, that would mean go through detox, come out off the alcohol, and hopefully try and stay off of it.”
  — Greg Laitner (72:35, G)

• "He was actually probably within a quarter mile of the road...he would have hit that within a quarter mile."
  — Sheriff Ronneberg (60:55, C)

• "That really, really haunts me a lot...should have left that elk and gone down there and looked for his ass."
  — Greg Laitner (75:52, G)

• "If it was one of my friends that was out there missing, I'd be right out front...We had to go find Joe and Greg. We had to go find them guys to get more information out of them. They didn't want to have anything to do with this. And that just threw all kinds of red flags."
  — Sheriff Ronneberg (44:25, C)

• "It's honestly, it's unfathomable, it really is, that you would go into the mountains as a group and that you would have a member of your party not check in even at...a few hours...Once it's been 12 hours, it's like the worry should have changed to real concern."
  — Giannis Putelis (46:42, F)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Disappearance & Search: 02:23–05:28
• Mule incident & gear loss: 08:44–10:37
• Behavioral red flags & group conflict: 13:28–17:26
• Aaron’s last sighting/departure: 17:26–18:32
• Aaron’s substance issues: 18:36–22:32
• The group’s response after losing Aaron: 23:04–29:35
• Search & rescue deployment: 30:41–39:51
• Suspicion and investigation: 41:29–53:53
• Body found, aftermath: 53:58–60:48
• Unanswered questions & concluding reflections: 61:23–76:38

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Final Reflection

Jordan Sillars' investigation does not offer easy answers, but underscores the unpredictability and harshness of the wild, human frailty under stress, and how guilt and speculation thrive in tragic ambiguity. Despite extensive search efforts, logical theories, and forensic investigation, Aaron Hedges' death remains a haunting and cautionary tale for anyone venturing into the wilderness: "You never know what might happen up in those mountains and you better be prepared." (05:28, B)

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[B]

T E.com the plan was simple. A week of elk hunting in Montana's backcountry. But somewhere between the trailhead into the Crazy Mountains and the first snowfall, Aaron Hedges vanished. His friends said he'd gone off on his own, and searchers later found his boots neatly placed beside a firing. What happened next would baffle investigators and fuel a decade of theories about how and why Aaron died within a quarter mile of being rescued. That's next on blood trails.

There are many strange things about the disappearance of Aaron Hedges, but one of the strangest is why he took off his boots. Hedges and two of his friends went elk hunting in the Crazy Mountains of western Montana. In September of 2014. Those two friends came back. Aaron did not. A search and rescue team was dispatched to try to find the missing hunter. About a week into those efforts, the team found what they hoped would lead them to Aaron.

[C]

We go back and we research that area on the bench and find two points where he tries to make fire he was actually successful on one. I don't think he was as successful at another one. And then that's when we found the booth.

[B]

That's Wheatgrass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg. He helped lead the search efforts and he told me that even a week after Aaron had gone missing, they were still hopeful they might find him alive. And those size 10 Wolverine hunting boots told them he was close. After all, what kind of hunter takes off his boots beside a fire and then keeps walking? But the rescue team, along with two deputies from the Park County Sheriff's Office, searched the area for over three hours and didn't turn up anything else besides a camelback water bladder, a water filter and some trash. Aaron had vanished. It was like he'd been sucked out of his boots and into the ether. Here's Park County Detective Brian Greene speaking in 2015.

[D]

What was found and where it was found and the condition it was found in is very odd. And what wasn't found is very odd. There's just something about it that's very unsettling.

[B]

After two weeks, the search team gave up. They'd done everything they could think of, but Aaron Hedges was nowhere to be found. In the years that followed, the Internet had a field day.

[C]

All theories are out there, you know, everything from murder to UFOs to Bigfoot. A lot of us thought he walked out and he caught himself a ride and he just left the country. He's out sipping my ties in the Bahamas, you know, that, that kind of thing.

[B]

Others thought maybe Aaron had been raptured. You know, taken by God into heaven where he wouldn't need hunting boots. This was the subject of a self published book on Amazon titled Aaron Hedges A Case Study in the Rapture and the End of Life as We Know It. Believe it or not, it's on the first page of Google. When you search for Aaron's name, Internet sleuths and true crime podcasters got some answers when in August of 2016, almost two years after he went missing, Aaron's remains were found. But the questions didn't stop. Why did Aron leave his friends and travel so far from their base camp? Why did those friends not look for him, even with a snowstorm bearing down? What killed Aaron in those mountains? Why did he die within a quarter mile of a road? And what made him take off his boots and walk six more miles in the freezing cold?

These and other questions have perplexed professional and amateur detectives for nearly a decade. Some of them may never be answered. But for anyone who's hunted elk in the Rocky Mountain West. Aaron's story is a warning. You never know what might happen up in those mountains and you better be prepared. I'm Jordan Sillers and this is Blood what Happened to Aaron Hedges.

Part one A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Almost everything we know about Aaron's story comes from the two men who hunted with him, Joe Depew and Greg Laitner. Joe and Greg both declined to be interviewed for this episode, and we'll talk about why in a few minutes, but I was able to obtain a recorded interview between Greg and two park county detectives. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time this interview has ever been made public. I also have the complete incident report from the Park County Attorney's Office, which includes descriptions of interviews between Joe and detectives. Between those interviews and documents, we have a pretty good idea what the pair of hunters told law enforcement in the days after Aaron went missing. Here's a portion of that incident report that describes what the three hunters planned to do during the six days they were in the Crazy Mountains.

[E]

Depew stated that they had arrived in his vehicle and that all three parties had done a hunting pack trip the year prior in the same area. Depew stated that the hunting group then started in the direction of Trespass Creek with a destination of going to Campfire Lake, then to Moose Lake and then up Middle Fork Creek Trail to go up North Fork Creek with a final destination being at the lower lakes in the area of Sunlight Lake.

[B]

Their plan was to pack a horse and a mule into the Custer Gallatin National Forest just north of Livingston, Montana. They went in at the IBEX trailhead on September 5, 2014 and as you heard, they hoped to arrow an elk in the area around Campfire Lake, Moose Lake and Sunlight Lake. If you've never been there, this is a gorgeous patch of country and the weather was perfect with highs in the 50s and 60s and lows just below freezing.

[F]

Beautiful mountain range, first of all, right, very visible from I90 corridor as you're driving east and west. Kind of stand out almost like an island mountain chain.

[B]

That's meat eaters. Giannis Putelis Janni has backpacked with his wife and kids in the crazy mountains on three separate occasions, and he recently finished a 100 mile trail race on some of the same paths that Greg, Joe and Aaron traveled on their hunt. Janni explained that the Crazies are a popular place for Bozeman residents to take a weekend hike because they're accessible and not too intimidating.

[F]

The Crazies actually aren't A huge mountain range. When you're on a lot of the bigger peaks or passes, the, you can see the flats or the valley, the major valleys to the east and west, right. You're not like deep in and you can't see out. Like, you can always see one way or the other.

[B]

It's not a huge mountain range. But there are still plenty of opportunities for hunters. Joe, Greg and Aaron wanted to make it up to Campfire Lake on their first day. A seven mile hike up Trespass Creek Trail. But the trip got off to a rocky start. Here's Greg speaking to detectives.

[G]

We got all loaded up and the mule bucked the pack saddle off once in the trailhead, right in the trailhead, just because she was scared of Erin.

You know. And we got that all, we got that all situated. Now we're running way behind. It's already like afternoon. And so we decided we'll make it a couple miles up the trail and make camp. And so we get a couple miles up the trail. Aaron tries to walk up ahead of us. And the mule sees Aaron coming through her peripheral vision and flips out again and fucks everything off of her back again. And you know, Aaron gets, gets pissed and starts trying to hit the mule and this and that. Joe and I just put a stop to it. Hey man, knock it off. Like, she's scared of you for a reason. Like, get away from her, you know, like. And we're getting really irritated, but, you know, you know, we've kind of, kind of already started on the trip now and I kind of had a, had a bad feeling at that point that, you know, Aaron just should not be there. But it's almost past the point of return. I mean, I get it, or maybe it wasn't, but it felt like it was at the time.

[B]

This wasn't the only time they had trouble with the mule. As they tried to summit the pass the next day, the mule took off again. But this time the consequences were much worse.

[G]

Again Aaron walked up and spooked the mule and the mule took off bucking and that, if you're familiar with that valley on the west side of Campsite Campfire Pass, that basin. The mule took off just running all over that valley, bucking our gear all over the place. So we spent all afternoon picking up that stuff. The, the mule lost Aaron's sleeping bag. We eventually found every single thing that the mule had bucked off except, except Aaron's sleeping bag. Never ever did find it.

[B]

They admitted that none of them knew much about dealing with pack animals. And later in the trip, Joe and Greg spent three hours trying to catch the mule that had escaped overnight, but they couldn't corral it. They eventually gave up and went back to camp and the mule followed. This detail is actually more important than it sounds. That mule accident when Aaron lost his gear was the catalyst that sparked the series of events that eventually led to his disappearance. Joe, Greg and Aaron had hunted together for the past five or six years, and Joe had known Aaron even longer. We'll hear more about Aaron's personal history soon, but for now, let's get back to the hunt. Joe told law enforcement that they looked for a couple hours for the sleeping bag and then went back to the truck and retrieved some additional items, including blankets and a tarp, which strangely, Joe claims that Aaron refused to use. And while Greg says they found all of Aaron's gear except his sleeping bag, Sheriff Ronneberg says the search and rescue team wrote, recovered more than just a sleeping bag.

[C]

It would have spent some time, but they could have got it because it was recovered by the search and rescue people. When they first got up the trail, they noticed all this stuff scattered all over the trail and they started picking up, they picked it up. Why they didn't, I don't know. They wanted to get into camp, I guess. I'm not really sure.

[B]

Whatever the status of Aaron's gear, the delay forced them to camp on the trail that night, which didn't do much to improve company morale.

[C]

Morale.

[G]

Aaron had nothing. Even though we told him that, that he needed a bivy sack and he needed this and that. We got up there and realized that once he lost his sleeping bag, he literally had no gear at all. Nothing.

[B]

Greg and Joe tried to help Aaron stay warm that night, but he refused.

[G]

And he being real hard headed, I'm just, and I knew it was going to get down to, you know, 15, 20 degrees that night and just look Aaron, you, you can't just sleep on the ground. Let's, let's figure this out. There's a lot of options. A resourceful guy would have gotten the pads off of the horses, would have built a big fire, stocked up on firewood. Any person in their right mind, any halfway survivalist would have gotten all the gear that they could to stay warm. He's so hard headed. I don't need any of that shit. We're just like, you do need it. Like, you know, we eventually just get so mad, fine, you know, whatever. Like I can't, I can't make you put all this stuff on.

[B]

They proceeded the next day, Saturday, September 6, to what would become their base camp. But Aaron's mood had deteriorated after a night without his sleeping bag. In fact, Joe told investigators that Aaron was acting agitated and confrontational almost from the moment they arrived the trailhead, According to the incident report.

[E]

Depue said Hedges was pissed off at the mule and the whole situation and was generally uncooperative that first night. DePue said hedges remained pissed off the entire next day. After arriving at Campfire Lake on the second afternoon.

[B]

Things didn't get much better when they set up camp.

[C]

Greg got really irritated with him and actually almost broke into a fist fight at one night to the point, you know, Aaron and Greg were going to have at it. It was a heck of an argument.

[B]

I should point out here that none of the incident reports I received from park county mention anything about a fight. There was obviously tension in camp, but in these reports, neither Greg nor Joe reported any kind of physical altercation, and they didn't respond to the question when I emailed it to them. In their telling of it, it's hard to blame the pair of hunters for being exasperated. They say Aaron was acting listless and uninterested, Almost like he didn't want to be there. Greg said that Aaron had put a new sight on his bow, but didn't bother to sight it in before the trip. According to Greg, Aaron spent part of the time at camp blowing up his arrows by firing them into rocks, and he never actually got it sighted in. Greg said Aaron wouldn't have been able to hit a Hay Bale from 10 yards away.

[G]

I take it very seriously. My whole year is devoted to bow hunting. I shoot my bow every day. I run. It's very serious. And so I showed up to the parking lot at Joe's outback, and Aaron pulled in, and he just looked like shit. His face was pickled. He hadn't had a haircut in forever.

[B]

Greg claims that Aaron had been drinking, and that suspicion appeared to be confirmed when Greg and Joe took a walk up the mountain and looked back at camp through their binoculars.

[G]

Right by where our. Our camp was, there was a big black bear walking in that big open mo. Right by where the camp was. Aaron's sitting there just kind of looking at it. We're watching through our binoculars, and we're just thinking, like, oh, is he gonna get his bow and go try and shoot that thing? Is he. Dude drunk? What's he doing? And so we're watching, and he grabs his. Grabs his bow, and he's, like, stumbling Trying to figure out what he's doing. Oh, he's looking for his slippers. So he goes and he puts his slippers on and he gets his bow and he starts stumbling across the meadow right towards the bear. You know, not like how you would put a stock on an animal. He just starts walking right towards it. I was surprised he got as close as he did. He probably got 40 or 50 yards away, which, which could have been theoretically in shooting distance. But he never even attempted to draw his bow. He just kept walking at it. And the bear eventually turned around and ran. But that gave us an idea right there that he was gonna stay at camp or he'd get on elk by himself. Like, I'm not, you know, we put too much work into this. Like, that was the most pathetic excuse for a stalk on an animal I've ever seen.

[B]

When Greg and Joe walked back into camp, they could tell the horse and mule were nervous about something lurking in the darkness beyond the firelight. Aaron wasn't concerned, but Greg said he knew something was wrong. He walked where the animals were looking and found another bear standing just about 20 yards away. He fired two shots from his pistol to scare the bear away and returned to camp.

[G]

But then after that, I was just irate with Aaron so mad. I'm just like, what are you doing? Are you kidding me? So there's a bear right there in camp harassing the horses. You're laying here drunk, you know, like what? Just, like, what good are you, you know, just, just stay in camp. Like, I was so angry at him and just, it was just so pathetic. Like, because we take it so seriously and he just wasn't.

[B]

With that kind of resentment in the air. It probably came as a relief when Aaron told them he planned to leave.

[G]

After that second night at the base of Campfire Pass. After he stayed up all night cussing and building the fire, he said he was going to walk to the cache at Sunlight Camp.

[B]

The previous fall, the group had stashed some gear near Sunlight Lake, including a wall, tent, stove, sleeping bags and freeze dried food. Rather than spend another night in the cold without his sleeping bag, Aaron said he wanted to make the nine mile hike up to Sunlight Lake and retrieve what they'd stashed. The group agreed to use their Garmin Rhino 120 GPS radios to contact each other at noon and at 4pm every day until they reunited. Aaron said that if they didn't walk up to where he was, he'd walk back to them on Monday or Tuesday. Since they planned to leave On Wednesday.

Greg and Joe got up early to look for elk. On Sunday, September 7, they said that when they looked back at camp, they could still see Aaron milling around. And as far as we know, that's the last time anyone saw Aaron alive.

Part two Aaron.

Like so many things about this story, Aaron Hedges himself is a bit of a mystery. We know he was married and had one young son at the time of his disappearance. We know he was 38 years old. He was 6 1, 190 pounds and had blonde hair and blue eyes. We know he liked to hunt elk and he lived in the Livingston Bozeman area, but we don't know much else. The friends and family we contacted about this episode, including his wife Christine, either didn't get back to us or refused to speak to us. We do know, as you may have already guessed, that Aaron was an alcoholic. Greg told investigators that Aaron would regularly drink a bottle of Jack Daniels a day, and he brought several with him on that trip. Both Joe and Greg implied that this may have explained Aaron's strange behavior.

[G]

We get off the main road and we're driving up the dirt road to the trailhead, and Aaron pulls out like, this bottle of twisted tea or something and starts drinking it. We're getting ready to.

Penetrate 10 miles deep into the crazy mountains, and he's busting out a twisted tea, and he's already just loopy as hell from whatever the medication he was taking is. And I'm just like, what are you doing? I'm like. He's like, oh, it's, it's just these twisted tees. It's not a big deal. It's, it's, it's not Jack Daniels. I'll be fine.

[B]

Greg said that Aaron seemed drunk on that ride to the trailhead, but he wasn't sure whether that was from the alcohol or the medication Aaron had been prescribed to help him curb his alcohol addiction. He didn't know what the medication was called, but investigators later confirmed with Aaron's doctor that he'd been prescribed a drug called chlordiazepoxide. The brand name of this drug is Librium, and it's prescribed to patients to treat anxiety disorders and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Aaron's doctor confirmed that he'd been given a prescription of this medication in the weeks prior to the hunt. Christine told investigators that she believed this medication had made Aaron, quote, agitated and unstable on his feet.

[E]

Christine stated that because of the negative side effects she had seen in her husband Aaron, which included short temperedness and physical unbalanced, she didn't want him to go on the hunting trip. The trip was a spur of the moment trip for Aaron. She also stated that if it wasn't for the medication side effects, she would not be worried about her husband.

[B]

It's true that the side effects of Librium include dizziness, changes in mood or behavior, and confusion. But the medication is also prescribed as a treatment for anxiety. So the doctor told investigators that Aaron should have had, quote, a very stable mindset while taking the medication. She also said that if Aaron had been taking the pills per the instructions, he should have been done with them well before the trip began. In other words, while both alcohol and Librium may have explained Aaron's strange behavior, we don't know exactly what or how much was in his system on the day he disappeared. It's also worth noting again that we have to rely on Greg and Joe's word that Aaron was acting strangely at all. Whatever the truth is, Aaron's drinking wasn't just messing with his archery skills. In his initial interview with investigators, Joe said he'd known Aaron for 10 years.

[E]

But he was under the impression that Hedges had a wonderful wife and was screwing up by drinking so much.

[B]

Aaron's drinking was clearly a problem, and Greg mentioned that he switched from hard tea to whiskey after that first night.

[G]

He would drink it in secret because we were giving him a hard time about it because, you know, we knew if he was taking those pills and we didn't want him drinking anyways. I mean, if you're, you know, getting done hunting at the end of the day and you want to, you want to have a couple pulls off the bottle by the fire, that's one thing. You know, drinking a whole liter of.

[B]

Whiskey over the course of the day.

[G]

While you're on an elkhon is another thing. Like we just weren't okay with it.

[B]

Getting drunk in the backcountry might not be wise, but the question remains, is that what killed Aaron? Did the side effects of the medication or another bottle of Jack Daniels or not having another bottle of Jack Daniels cause him to lose his way and eventually his life? It's possible, but that's not where this story ends.

Part three Lost.

Aaron's behavior didn't stop Greg and Joe from their primary mission on that trip. After they looked back and saw Aaron still in camp, they forged ahead into the hills and valleys around Campfire Lake in search of elk. They were successful. In the afternoon of Sunday, September 7, the first day they went hunting, Greg arrowed a nice 6x6 bull. They told Investigators that they shot the animal near dead horse lake, which is about two miles northeast of Campfire Lake. As the crow flies.

[G]

We're working our way east towards sunlight drainage Right at the top of the timber. And I'm just letting out, letting out cow calls, Trying to see if I can get those two other bulls we saw. And sure enough, both of them just came running right at me on a stream. And one of them hung up at about 80 yards, and the other one just walked right up on top of me. I was able to draw my bow back. And he walked up to about 10, 10, 15 yards and drilled them right between the chest.

[B]

If you've ever been hunting with a group, you, know that when someone shoots an animal, the rest of the group tries to come help with the packout. Dead horse lake is actually pretty close to sunlight lake. And so the pair of hunters radioed Aaron to come back and help them break down the bull.

[G]

We get out the radio because Aaron had that radio. And we're thinking, like, Aaron's got to be on the trail right below us, like, like, so let's get him on the radio, and let's tell him not to go to the camp. You know, we need his help.

[B]

Aaron answered their radio call, but he didn't seem excited to hear about their success on the mountain.

[G]

He immediately answered. He's like, yeah, I'm here. Just in sort of that drunk, angry voice. And I'm just like, dude, we got a bull now. Where are you? And he's just, like, not excited at all. He's just. Just like, I don't know. You don't know?

[C]

Fu.

[G]

Should you walk the same trail we did? Like, have you gotten to the. To the turnoff to sunlight trail yet? I don't know. I've been hiking for seven miles.

[B]

Greg thinks Aaron was exaggerating about how far he walked, but if he was even close to correct, he would have missed the turnoff he was supposed to take up to sunlight lake.

[C]

He went right past the fork to go to sunlight and went straight down to the sweet grass. So he was headed for Sweetgrass county the last time they heard from him.

[B]

To understand what's happening here, it helps to look at a map. I used onx to map Aaron's last known locations and to get a sense of who was where and when. We posted a version of that map on the case file for this episode, which you can check out over at themateater.com/blood trails. To walk from Campfire Lake to sunlight lake, Aaron would have had to Walk northwest about five and a half miles along a well defined trail. At that point, he would have had to hang a left and go north along another trail up to sunlight. That's where, according to Greg and Joe, Aaron started to lose his way. This is an important part of the story because it explains why Aaron never found the gear cache and why he was so ill prepared to survive a drop in temperature. I haven't seen this trail or the turnoff myself, but Janni has.

[F]

I've been on that trail both daylight hours and nighttime hours. It was not hard to find that turn off.

[B]

Janni explained that the trail in that area is in thick timber and gets a lot of human and horse traffic. So if you're on the trail, you probably wouldn't miss the turn, especially in daylight and even if you were slightly intoxicated. But there's also a creek crossing prior to the turnoff. So if Aaron had moved off the trail to get across the water or because he was hunting elk, it's possible he could have missed it easily.

[F]

Easily. Because if you're on the trail. Yeah, it's like, right there. You could probably walk it with your eyes closed because you could feel when you go off the trail. But being that he was elk hunting, maybe he was walking the trail at first, But I would imagine that he didn't elk hunt an entire day and stay on a trail the entire day. That would be hard to do.

[B]

Of course, even if Aaron had missed the trail, he could have just turned around and retraced his steps. That's what Greg and Joe told him to do. But for reasons that remain a mystery, he refused.

[G]

We're just like, Aaron, turn around and walk back the way you came. If you haven't switched trails, all you have to do is turn around and start walking back. We'll meet you on the trail. Joe here, talk to Aaron. Joe's just like, what the man? You don't know where you are. And he's like, I don't know. We'll turn around, come right back up here. And at that point, the. The signal was kind of fading out a little bit, like getting a little bit scratchy. And. And we're just like, turn around and come back up. Okay, we're gonna come down to the trail and meet you. Just turn around. Don't go any further. Well, I. I just don't know sure where I am. And Joe's like, just getting pissed. Like, what do you mean, dude? Just turn around. And Aaron says, I don't think I'm gonna make it back tonight.

Last words he ever spoke. Couldn't get him on the radio after that. It was almost like maybe he got maybe mad and turned off his radio. I don't think that we lost the stage, signaled out abruptly, but he just said, I don't think I'm going to make it back tonight. And that was the last thing he said.

[C]

And they made more attempts to contact him, but then at that time, Aaron wouldn't respond or didn't respond.

[B]

The group had planned to leave on Wednesday and they shot the elk on Sunday. So they had three full days to quarter the elk and pack it out. In the reports, Joe and Greg don't mention whether Joe had an elk tag, but it doesn't sound like they hunted anymore after that. Instead, they spent about two hours breaking down the animal and hanging the meat. Then they walked back down to their base camp on Campfire Lake. The next morning, they broke camp and headed up to Moose Lake to retrieve the elk and make another camp up there. Then on Tuesday, they hiked back down to Campfire Lake in the hope that they'd run into Aaron as he made his way back to the trucks. But he didn't show. And on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, they hiked down to the trailhead where and drove away. In all that time, they never heard from or saw Aaron again.

[C]

No contact from him. He's nowhere to be found. They looked for him and they knew or were aware that there was weather coming in and they decided to take off.

[B]

They called Erin's wife when they returned to cell service and Christine called the park county sheriff to report that her husband was missing. That call launched what would become one of the largest search and rescue efforts of park and Sweetgrass counties had ever seen.

After the break, we dig deeper into the search for Aaron and the investigation into Greg and Joe. Why didn't they call search and rescue earlier? Why did they defy law enforcement and return to the gear cache? And how does Greg try to explain their actions to detectives while wondering whether something isn't quite right about their story? All that and more is next, right after this.

Part 4 the search Sheriff Alan Ronneberg told me his career has been defined by the search for Aaron Hedges. No one wants to be remembered for a single tragic circumstance, but the search for Aaron was enormous. Those search efforts were frustrated almost from the first moment that night.

[C]

I mean, it flipping snow, the temp dropped, I don't know, probably 40 degrees. I would imagine it went from 50 to like 10 in eight to 10 hours. And it in the crazies. It snowed 18 to 24 inches of snow in one storm.

[B]

Yanni says this kind of sudden snowstorm isn't unusual and the three hunters should have been prepared for something like this to happen.

[F]

Nope, not out of the ordinary. I would even say it's closer to normal than not normal. Even when I did that race at the end of July, you have a kit that you have to carry with you that will basically save your butt if that happens at the end of July. Like you could see temperatures well into the 80s, maybe higher. You know, if you saw snowflakes, you wouldn't go, oh my God, I died and went to hell or something like. It's known to have some crazy weather and I think a storm can come in and just hit those high mountain peaks. Temps drop, moisture drops, and the next thing you know, yeah, it can be September, August, July, and it's snowing on you. Not out of the ordinary.

[B]

The trio of hunters had gone into the mountains in Park County. So in those first few days, the Park County Sheriff's office took the lead on the search efforts and the subsequent investigations investigation. But they knew from what Joe and Greg told them that Aaron was headed east into Sweetgrass county when they lost contact with him. So Sheriff Ronneberg figured they should send a team on four wheelers to a place called Eagle park, which is where Aaron may have emerged if he had kept walking.

[C]

It was like 10 o' clock at night, 10 to midnight, they stayed there. They honked their horns, yelled for him, whistled for him. Everything they could to attract him were there for two hours. Nothing was there. It was, it would just flat dump in snow and so they took off out of there.

[B]

The snowstorm kept searchers indoors until the next morning when park county launched their efforts. At 7am Park county launched a really.

[C]

Good search between their search rescue team, the Absaroka search dogs, National Guard, Rocky Mountain rotors all kind of got into the area.

[B]

But even though the storm had stopped, conditions were still incredibly dangerous. Two horse teams were deployed to search Campfire Lake and Sunlight Lake. They stayed out all day, but 1 to 2ft of snow and sub zero temperatures kept them from searching the entirety of the trails to either lake. They found no sign of Aaron on the portions of the trail they were able to search. They also sent in two military helicopters to fly over the entire area. Low clouds and poor visibility hampered their efforts at first, but conditions improved as the day wore on. They kept searching until nearly midnight using night vision technology, but they still found no sign of Aaron. But something else happened that day that to this day has yet to be explained. 2 Search and Rescue crew members went up in a separate helicopter to the gear cache, following GPS coordinates provided by Joe. But either Joe made a mistake or the crew went to the wrong place because they weren't able to find the stash of gear.

[E]

In fact, upon arrival to the area, we were advised by team members that the GPS coordinates provided were as much as 10 miles away from the Sunlight Lake area. Pilot Mark Taylor landed in an area similar to that described by Joe depew. And Todd and Piccolo commenced a short search for the cache but were unable to locate it.

[B]

The next day, Friday, September 12, two dog teams were dispatched via helicopter, one of which scoured the area around Sunlight Lake. The team found the cache along with a bunch of boot prints in the snow. These boot prints, investigators learned, were made by Greg and Joe. The evening before. Greg and Joe had gone back to the Sunlight Lake trailhead and spoken with the two deputies stationed there.

[E]

They told deputies that they were going to Sunlight Lake, where they had a cache that they left the previous year while they were hunting the area. Deputy Nelson told me that he tried to discourage Depew and Lightner from going, as he did not want them to complicate the search effort. And also due to inclement weather. I would like to note that Corporal Todd had spoken to Depew earlier in the day and requested they stay out of the search area.

[B]

But Craig and Joe went anyway.

[G]

So we made it up there, and it was. It was hell making it over that pass. We did it. We got down. We walked right to where our cache was. It had not been touched.

[B]

Touched.

[G]

Aaron never made it there. Without a doubt.

[B]

They set up camp and spent the night, and Greg reports he didn't get much sleep, thanks to the army helicopter hovering overhead. He also said Joe was sick with pneumonia to the point where he was coughing up blood.

[G]

Probably the most eerie experience I've ever had in my life. I mean, I'm sitting there, you know, looking for my buddy that's. That's missing. My other buddy's laying here coughing up blood. Just sick as hell. It's just this, like, arctic tundra at this point, and I've got this chopper all night long. Just don't, don't, don't, don't. Just right over the tent.

[B]

Greg looked for tracks that evening, and he found some, but he said they were smaller than Aaron's footprint would have been. He followed them for an unstated distance, but he was worried about Joe's health, so he went back to camp and the pair hiked out. The next morning. Deputies confirmed that they got back to the trailhead about 11:45am this is how the dog team was able to locate the cache. The next day, they found Greg and Joe's tracks and just followed them to the gear. The reports don't mention that Greg and Joe took anything, but they couldn't help disturbing the scene. The search teams also didn't find any sign of Aaron, so they photographed the contents of the cache and kept looking. A few days later, on Sunday, September 14, another dog team found the first clue as to Aaron's real whereabouts. The report says they located an arrow that matched the description of the arrows Aaron was using, but they found it in an unlikely place along the trail to Sunlight Lake. Remember, according to Greg and Joe, Aaron said he'd missed the turn to Sunlight Lake and had kept walking. But if this arrow was actually Aaron's, it would mean he didn't miss the turn and was at one point headed toward the cache of gear. But that clue didn't lead to anything further. And it wasn't until the search turned east into Sweetgrass county that the searchers began to piece together what had happened.

[C]

Third or fourth day, we kind of figured, well, he's not in park county, he's in Sweetgrass County. By that time, there was still a little bit of snow on the ground, so we went ahead up from our side, up to Eagle park and beyond. Well, right against the trail is a. Is a pretty good fire pit that has been used by the local dude ranch. Great big, nice place to camp out. And that's next to the falls. Well, we found a hip belt that had been cut off of a pack inside the fire pit. Kind of partially burned maybe, but still in really good shape.

[B]

Ronneburg and his team didn't know why Aaron had cut off his hip belt and burned it, but they thought it might be his. That hunch was confirmed when on Wednesday, September 17, they found the boots and the water bladder, along with two places Aaron had made a fire. I asked the sheriff whether at this point they're just looking for a body or if they thought Aaron might still be alive.

[C]

No, at that time, we're still looking for him. I don't really think he has succumbed to anything. Or as we go along, you know, we're doing tight circles around that area trying to pick up any kind of trace that he was there, and we didn't come up with anything.

[B]

They found the water bladder near a waterfall. And so they thought maybe he'd gone down to refill it and had slipped in and drowned. That would also explain why he disappeared without his boots.

[C]

We spent a day trying to dredge the falls, so we kind of wonder if he didn't slip and go into the water and drowned and has not come out. You know, we kind of got fixated on that for a little while.

[B]

But the water didn't give them the answers they were looking for, either. The boots and campfires were about 2 miles beyond the turnoff to Sunlight Lake and about 7 miles from the base camp at Campfire Lake. During one of those last radio conversations, Joe said Aaron reported having hiked about seven miles, which means he could have been in this area during that radio call. But that call happened on Sunday evening, a full three days before the snow hit. Was Aaron hanging out in this area that entire time, or did he move on? The search teams were confident that they'd found Aaron's camp, and so they focused their efforts on the surrounding area in the days that followed. The mission lasted another five days, until Monday, September 22.

[C]

I gathered up all my guys that were there, and they'd been there most of the two weeks. I said, all right, is there anything else we can do? Do you. Do you guys have any ideas of where we can search, what we can do to try and find this guy? Is there anything else we could do? And everybody said, I can't think of a damn thing.

[B]

It's hard to fault Sheriff Ronneburg and the other search and rescue leaders from making this call. They'd been scouring the mountains every day for 12 days straight. They deployed horse teams, dog teams, helicopters, and ATVs. They'd done hasty searches to cover lots of ground and slow, grueling grid searches to find even the smallest clue. They'd gotten help from search and rescue personnel and law enforcement agents, many of whom were pulling double duty, and they hadn't come up with anything. The case was still open, but the concentrated search efforts were over. Hindsight is 20 20, but as the sheriff looks back on that decision, he can't help but wonder if he made the right call.

[C]

If I had been listening to my training, which I should have been, I would have said, you know what? Let's start searching further east. Let's keep going. You know, because he's hunting. I didn't put two and two together, and he's off chasing something, or, you know, he just decided this was the way better way out. You know, he didn't want to go Back. He didn't want to stay in place. He just wanted to keep going. Like last person behavior says they'll do.

[B]

Part five. The investigation. While the search and rescue teams were looking for Aaron in the mountains, the Park County Sheriff's office was working to piece together why Aaron disappeared in the first place. Their efforts were hampered initially because for reasons that have only been partially explained, Joe and Greg didn't call to report their friend missing.

[E]

On 9, 1014, at approximately 1823 hours, dispatch received a complaint of a missing person in the Crazy Mountains area in Park County. The complainant, Christine Hedges, stated that her husband never came home from a hunting trip, and his friends had called to tell her that her husband was missing.

[B]

Christine first called Sweetgrass county, but the dispatchers there referred her to Park County. When Sheriff Ronneberg heard about what happened, he found a number for Joe and Greg and called them himself.

[C]

I said, well, where are you now? He said, we're on the Bozeman Hill. I said, what the hell are you doing on the Bozeman Hill? You need to turn around and you need to go to the Park County Sheriff's office right now. They tried to put it off and, and do this. We've got to take care of our animals, that stuff like that. I told them, I don't really give a rat. You better get your ass down to the sheriff's office. Report your friend missing.

[B]

Greg might dispute this characterization. In his interview with law enforcement, he said that Joe contacted the park county sheriff as soon as they got off the mountain. But the reports I received from the county attorney clearly state that Christine, not Greg or Joe, was the person who called to report Aaron missing. I don't know if Joe's call wasn't recorded or if something else can explain that discrepancy, but whatever the truth is, the pair of hunters did eventually make it to the Park County Sheriff's office at 7:15 that evening. Deputies took their initial statements, and detectives interviewed both of them multiple times over the next few weeks. They wanted to know what happened in those mountains, where Aaron may have gone, and most importantly, why they'd left him up there. What they heard from the two elk hunters was not reassuring.

[C]

Almost everything they talked was a lie. They were trying to hide what they were doing up there. Joe and Greg were interviewed extensively, I believe three times, because there was a pretty good theory that they had done Aaron in and probably had buried him in a rock slide up by the lake where their base camp was. That was a very prominent theory early on.

[B]

Joe and Greg would be suspected no matter what they said. Three men went up into the mountains and only two of them came back. Investigators had to wonder whether anything nefarious had happened. But according to Sheriff Ronneberg, Joe and Greg said and did things that made investigators extremely suspicious. The first is what you already heard. Rather than calling Search and Rescue, as soon as they got back to service, they called Christine.

[C]

If it was one of my friends that was out there missing, I'd be right out front going, hey, we need to find this guy. I want to help every way we can. I want to be out there with you. We had to go find Joe and Greg. We had to go find them guys to get more information out of them. They didn't want to have anything to do with this. And that just threw all kinds of red flags all the way through the front end of this.

[B]

They did eventually give statements, but those statements also raised troubling questions.

[E]

It should be noted that neither depew nor Lightner indicated they looked for Hedges at all while they were in the area. Depew stated that they attempted to make contact with Hedges every hour and even attempted to go places where the radio reception might be better. He said he thought they would bump into him sometime on Monday.

[B]

Greg reiterated this timeline in his interview with law enforcement.

[G]

I'm just like, when are you going to be back? I mean, you don't. We need to worry. We need to at least know the day you're going to be back so we can, you know, come and look for you.

[C]

And.

[G]

And he was like, wow, I don't know. That doesn't work for me.

Tell me when you're gonna be back. And.

I think he said he was gonna be back either Monday or Tuesday. Like he was just gonna go up there and spend the night and check on things.

[B]

But they didn't bump into him on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. In fact, over 72 hours passed between the time they lost contact with the their friend and when they finally called Christine to ask whether Aaron had come home.

[E]

I asked why they did not go to Sunlight. And depue stated he was second guessing himself and thought maybe he should have gone to Sunlight, but also thought Hedges may have already gone back out the way they came and be out ahead of them. DePue became teary eyed and emotional while we talked about this and stated he felt he made a mistake.

[B]

Janni agrees. Yanni's been hunting all over North America in groups both large and small. He told me he would have called the authorities if a member of his party had been missing for 12 hours, let alone 72. And that would be especially true if, as was the case with Aaron, he'd missed a pre established check in time.

[F]

It's honestly, it's unfathomable, it really is, that you would go into the mountains as a group and that you would have a member of your party not check in even at like, because they had set check times. And so once you, they had missed the check time by even just a few hours, someone should be getting worried. Once it's been 12 hours, it's like the worry should have changed to real concern and been thinking about what the plan is to alleviate that problem, that situation. But then the fact that they would have literally just left him behind and came out and then told his wife that to me, where I really start to wonder, like, what don't we know about the story? I got to know, I think you could survey a thousand people that spend time in the outdoors, hunters or not, and they would tell you the same thing. I'm saying, like they would not do that.

[B]

Greg no doubt anticipated this criticism and he tried to explain their reasoning. When Aaron still hadn't made it back to Campfire Lake by Tuesday night, they decided it would be better to leave their friend on the mountain.

[G]

And so at this point we don't know if something's wrong. We don't know if he's just thinking like, ah, those guys, this is more comfortable. I'm going to stay up here. Because he thinks we're going to be there for a few more days. I mean, even though we told him he, we had an outbound, like it didn't really register with him that we were looking to get it out. So we don't know what's going through his mind. And at this point we're also physically drained. We did not, you know, we didn't have the physical ability to go hiking every trail system in the Crazy Mountains looking for Aaron.

We could have hiked up to the Sunlight Camp. It would have been tough. But if he was at the Sunlight Camp, he would have been okay.

The only way he would not have been okay is if he didn't make it to the Sunlight Camp. And if he didn't make it to the Sunlight Camp, the two of us that are just skin and bones and, you know, feet bleeding, we're not going to be able to hike every trail system and we're thinking like, well, he's either up there at Sunlight and he's okay, or he just kept hiking a trail until he Came out one of the many exits anywhere in the crazies. If you just hike a trail, hike and hike and hike, you'll come out to a trail head somewhere. And so we thought, well, before we, you know, go breaking our backs, you know, hiking all over these mountains, let's haul ass back to town and get a hold of Christine, his wife, and see if he's made a phone call. Like, maybe he popped out one of these other trail heads and hitched a ride or called his wife. Like, the last thing we wanted to do was spend days in there looking for Aaron while the elk meat rotted. If Aaron was already out and sitting at his home drinking whiskey on his couch.

[B]

Still, they could have used their radios to call for help or even just walk back down and use their cell phones. It would have put a damper on their hunt. But since they shot the elk on the same day they lost contact with Aaron, you might also argue that they should have packed up and left to call help as soon as they could. It's easy to armchair quarterback decisions other people make, but that's what the detectives with the Park County Sheriff's office were paid to do, and the circumstances were suspicious. There was even a rumor that Joe and Christine may have been in some kind of romantic relationship. I heard this from a former official who wanted to remain anonymous. But the rumor was prevalent enough that Sheriff Ronneberg included it in a PowerPoint presentation he made about this incident. He presents it as a case study for search and rescue training. But on the slides about possible ways Aaron died, he lists this little tidbit about Joe and Christine as a possible motive for homicide. To be clear, there isn't anything about this in the official incident reports. And it's the kind of nasty rumor that almost always circulates around an incident like this. I don't put much stock in it, but Joe didn't respond to my questions about it, so I can't say for sure. Along with leaving Aaron in the wilderness and trying to avoid investigators, Joe and Greg also lied about their whereabouts on the mountain, at least at first. One deputy spoke to a witness who claimed to have seen the hunting party on the trail. We don't know exactly what they said, but Sgt. Clay Herbst wrote that the witness refuted the hunter's claims about where they camped the first night. He said in his report the Pears.

[E]

Depew, and Leitner are actively withholding information or giving misinformation regarding their exact whereabouts during the hunting trip.

[B]

Herbst goes on to say that the Evidence found in the mountains, including two arrows that match the description of the kind Greg was using, indicate that Greg and Joe lied about their campsites.

[E]

Herbst writes, we have been unable to locate any of these arrows at the other alleged campsite. We have also not been able to locate either of the other two camps where they stated they stayed with Hedges.

[B]

If this is true, why did investigators allow the pair to walk free? The answer goes back to the elk.

[C]

That is one reason why they were being deceptive was because they were hunting on private ground without permission.

[B]

Meat eater contributor Pat Durkin has famously said that big bucks make people stupid. I think the same could be said of big bulls. The area Greg and Joe were hunting is a patchwork of public and private ground. When investigators finally found the carcass of the elk Greg shot, they realized it was squarely in one of those private parcels. I reached out to Drew Scott, the game warden who handled this case for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. He confirmed that Greg shot his elk on private ground, but citations were never issued. The landowner didn't want to press charges, and so the case was basically dropped. But Greg and Joe couldn't have known that would happen. They likely feared getting in trouble. And that could explain, in part, why they were so hesitant to approach law enforcement.

[C]

They had the rhinos, they had the maps. They knew where they were hunting. They knew where was Forest service and private ground. They didn't want people to know where they were at anyway. And when Aaron took off because they didn't want to get it, found out, it was almost kind of an afterthought that they ever wanted to call him in as Missy. Yeah, they knew the elk they had was illegal. That's why they wanted to take care of the critters first.

[B]

The illegally harvested elk helped explain why Greg and Joe had been deceptive. But by itself, it wasn't enough to exonerate them. They were never arrested. But still, since the search and rescue team still hadn't found Aaron's remains, investigators continue to wonder whether the pair of hunters had more than one reason to lie about what happened in the Crazy Mountains. That's next on Blood Trails.

Part six, the body.

Without a body, it was impossible to draw firm conclusions or even formulate any reasonable theories about what happened. As Greg told detectives a few months after Aaron went missing, the fact that they still hadn't found Aaron's remains weighed especially heavy on his family.

[G]

I want closure for me and Joe and you guys, and his wife Christine and his boy Caleb, and, you know, like, I was Just telling him, I mean, it's so sad. There hasn't been a funeral, a memorial. It's, you know, and little boy still thinks that his dad might come home anyways, right, because he's missing.

[B]

The status quo began to change in 2015 when Sheriff Ronneberg was told that a rancher in the area had discovered a backpack, the same make and model of the one Aaron was using.

[C]

And when we went back, we found more evidence that he had been there. It was under shelter. It was under some sapling conifers. There was a lot of bear activity in the area.

[B]

The backpack was found six miles to the east of where the boots had been found, well beyond the search area from the year before. The team searched the area in concentric circles, but still weren't able to find Aaron's body. But Sheriff Ronneberg did find one other thing.

[C]

You know, I found the cup off of a thermos on a rock. And the crazy part of it is, is, you know, you could see the buildings of a residence two miles in front of him from that rock. I mean, it was right down the hill, just within two miles of the place. So it, it's a little, little bit confusing. You think, is somebody that hypothermic that they'll stop and take a drink of something, or is he so scared of that person down there that he does not want to have anything to do with him? Where does that in relationship with his physical condition, you know, what's his mental condition?

[B]

Aaron had walked six miles without boots and had come within two miles of a house. He would have been able to see from the hill. It's possible he wasn't able to see it due to the snowstorm or as Sheriff Rondeberg suggests, was afraid to approach the landowner.

[C]

Joe and Greg have filled Aaron with stories. You know, if you get caught trespassing up here, the landowner's just gonna string you up from a tree. You'll never be seen again. And just, I think, just scared the snot out of him. He had been over that trail before with his kids the previous summer, we ended up finding out. So he was a little bit familiar with the area. That's why we kind of think he was avoiding people as well, because he did not want to get caught in case he. He was on private ground.

[B]

The reports don't mention anything about Greg and Joe talking to Aaron about landowners. And Yanni told me he's never heard any rumors about violence. But this area is a patchwork of public and private, so the sheriff might Be right. It's also possible Aaron was afraid on his own without the prompting of his friends. But we don't really know for sure. Whatever the reason for Aaron's hesitation, the mountains still refused to give up his body. Conspiracy theories continued to flourish until the next year.

[C]

In August of 2016. Is the dude ranch was given a ride, and they went by a dead tree, and there was a skull in there right on the surface. And we found his lower mandible probably 30 yards away. And then up above, just up above, there was a cow trail. And just off the side of the cow trail, you could see some dirt had been pushed over. And that's where we found the hip and basically the rest of the bones that we found.

[B]

The bones that hadn't been carried away by scavengers were all in more or less the same place. But Aaron's clothes weren't in that pile.

[C]

So at that point where we found this hip bone and the clothing was kind of on the trail, I went ahead and went back up and found some more clothing. I found his underwear, actually. And about midway, went up a little higher, cut a trail, found his coat and a cell phone. It was a straight shot up the hill from where the backpack was.

[B]

Aaron's body had been buried under a pile of dirt, and his clothes had been strewn around his body. Scavengers were likely responsible for some of that, but vultures and coyotes can't explain all of it. Sheriff Ronneburg thinks he knows what happened.

[C]

You've heard of the shedding of cloves during hypothermia. That's what he's doing as he's going down the. Coming down the hill. He's shedding his clothes, shedding all his stuff. And I think, you know, something might have happened to him to where he just can't go no more. Maybe his energy is totally exhausted. He just is on the ground, can't get up, can't recover, and passes away. After he passes away, there's a whole lot of bear out there. Either a bear comes in and buries him, pushes the bank over to the top of him, or maybe predates him a little bit, and coyotes are there. You know, there's all kinds of stuff that'll gnaw on you that probably happened. I think a bear probably covered him for a while, and that's where he sat for two years.

[B]

The medical examiner looked at what remained of Aaron's body and used dental records to confirm his identity. Park county detectives used that information, along with their previous investigation to Officially rule out foul play, and Aaron's remains were released to his family on September 15, 2016. Of course, even with Aaron's body in front of them, Investigators were limited in what they could conclude. They couldn't do a toxicology report. So we don't know what was in the hunter's system at the time he died. We also don't know when he died. Sheriff ronneberg thinks, based on Aaron's gear and the weather, he likely passed away within 72 hours of Christine reporting him missing. But it's possible he survived longer than that. We don't even really know what killed him. It could have been hypothermia or some kind of accident or something else.

[C]

You know, we thought maybe he killed himself. There's a possibility of suicide in there, too. The skull didn't show any defect. You know, men. Men will probably take a firearm to commit suicide. He actually did have a pistol with him that had not been discharged, and the skull was fully intact.

[B]

However Aaron died, He was frustratingly, tragically close to finding help when he died.

[C]

He was actually probably within a quarter mile of the road. As you go downhill at the bottom of the hill, There's a road going up to the dude ranch that connects you with the dude ranch and the ranch house down below. And he would have hit that within a quarter mile.

[B]

Part 7 Unanswered questions.

I reached out to quite a few people to report this story, including all the detectives who worked on the case for park county. All of them either didn't respond to multiple calls and messages or declined to be interviewed on the record. This is an old case that's been officially closed, so I get it. They don't have much to gain from talking to me, and some told me explicitly that they're tired of rehashing questions that just don't have good answers. We still don't know, for instance, why Aaron took off his boots and kept walking. Greg proposed one theory before they discovered Aaron's remains, and it's an idea I've heard from others as well as I.

[G]

Wonder if maybe he got to that spot and maybe his socks were wet, because he told me that he had fallen in the creek or gotten his feet wet. So maybe he got to that spot, it was getting dark, and he decided that he wanted to maybe just make camp there for the night and build a fire. And then, you know, maybe he had a little fire going and took off his shoes to drive off his shoes and socks, and then started getting, you know, all drunk on those pills or who knows what, and stumbled off the canyon in the dark.

[B]

We now know Aaron didn't stumble into a canyon, and it would be strange to leave his boots to dry and then never return to them. Sheriff Ronneburg has another theory. He thinks Aaron was more interested in hunting elk than Greg and Joe are letting on, and that might explain why he'd walk so many miles without his boots.

[C]

The anthory. When I take a look back and kind of hypothesize what might have went on, I just bet you he was sitting there and some elk ran by him and he decided to go after, start stocking elk. So he changes out of his boots, which are for, you know, trail boots or good, solid, stiff soled boots, and put on a pair of tennis shoes to go make a stock on some elk, and I think that's why he left the boots.

[B]

If he left camp to chase elk on Wednesday, he would have gotten caught in the storm.

[C]

When he took off after the elk, I think that's when the snowstorm started, or maybe, you know, it was at dusk when the elk came by and he just took off after the elk and that's when the snowstorm started and he was hot after them elk. And I think by the time he quit, the temperature dumps and he doesn't have his normal gear that he carries. He's in light clothes. He hasn't prepared for a change of weather. He's getting more hypothermic, more hypothermic. He finds shelter, is unable to light a fire. Whether he goes out from shelter that night or out the very next morning, he either sees the yard light or he sees the red roofs of the house. He says, I gotta get my ass out of here. I'm probably in trouble. And he starts running downhill, and it's just past the point of no return. Now.

[B]

He sheds his clothes as he runs and is soon too exhausted to keep going. Maybe he trips and falls and just doesn't get back up.

Giannis thinks the sheriff's theory is plausible, though he has some questions about the timeline.

[F]

It seems like there's like there's more to the story, and I think we can all agree to that. Right? Like, that maybe is how that started. But like six miles to chase elk in one direction in one day, I think is a little bit long. He got those boots wet and was like, ah, heavy leather boots. I don't want to pack these around. You know, I've got these tennis shoes, running shoes that work just fine. It certainly is a tactic that people do you're very fast and light on your feet in running shoes. They're quieter than boots for sneaking up on on game. So that's not implausible that he would have, like, purposely done that to get closer to elk and, yeah, maybe, like, he could have chased him one day for a couple, three miles, and then he camped there and then continued on the next day, like I said. And he was just sort of following the herd.

[B]

The other unanswered question is what role Joe and Greg played in this story. When I reached Greg via email, he at first said he was willing to be interviewed. He told me that no one from the media had ever reached out to him. But he said he didn't feel comfortable speaking on the record until he talked to Christine, who he said had become close friends with both him and Joe. Four days later, Greg got back to me with Joe cc'd. He said that after talking with Christine, they felt it would be too painful to rehash what happened. He said that people would believe false conspiracy theories no matter what they said. And he encouraged me to follow my, quote, journalism ethics and not include any, quote, false or misleading information or statements about this tragedy or which placed Joe and me in a false light. Joe and Greg were cleared of suspicion by investigators, and that decision appears to have been confirmed by the location of Aaron's remains. Sheriff Ronneberg wasn't involved in that investigation directly, but he thinks it's unlikely the pair did anything nefarious to Aaron.

[C]

Why would they take him nine miles away from their base camp when there are perfectly good shale slides right above their base camp? You know, that's what the Indians used to do. How they buried their dead was they would lay them out on the shale field and push the bank over them. And, you know, there's still skeletons that have never been found for 200 years. If they would have done him in, I think they would have done him in at the base camp when they had motive and opportunity and would have buried him within reasonable distance from their base camp, not dragging his dead body nine miles.

[B]

The sheriff says nine miles, but it was actually more like 14. And we're not talking about a smooth, level path. That's a long way to drag a body. What's more, once Greg and Joe finally agreed to share the photos they'd taken on the hunt, and investigators were able to determine that they had remained in the mountains for all six days after Greg's final interview with law enforcement, Detective.

[E]

Brian Greene wrote, story and timeline were consistent with the available time date. Stamped photographs. Based on that consistency, it would have been almost impossible for them to have left the mountains at any time prior to their documented departure.

[B]

In other words, the photos proved that the pair were in the locations where they eventually admitted to being. The elk carcass proved they were in park county near Dead Horse Lake. And subsequent photographs proved they didn't kill Aaron and dump his body in the next county. When asked point blank by Detective Brian Greene whether Greg had anything to do with Aaron's death, he denied it.

[D]

Did you have anything to do with Aaron's death?

[B]

No.

[G]

Other than being on the hunting trip with him, I didn't have anything to do with his death. I. I feel like I could have done more to. To go look for him afterwards, but not sure. Didn't have anything to do with his death.

[D]

One of the theories is, is, you know, you guys were out hunting and for whatever reason neglected your friend, and all of a sudden he's dead. And, you know, maybe you realize that he had an accident or whatever, and, and you don't want to go home and tell his wife that, you know, your husband died on our watch. Did you guys do anything to cover up his death, to hide him, to try to, you know, hide the fact that you know where he is and you're not telling us or anything like that?

[G]

Negative. No.

[B]

Greg and Joe might not have been directly or even indirectly responsible for Aaron's death, but it's clear they were still struggling with a huge amount of guilt. Joe had known Aaron for a long time. He knew about Aaron's struggles with alcohol, and he, like Christine, second guessed his decision was to let Aaron accompany them on the trip. In one of their initial interviews, Sergeant Herp says Joe began to cry as he thought of his friend possibly dead, lost and alone in the mountains. He told the sergeant he, quote, felt responsible for Hedges, as he knew he should not have taken him on the trip. In Greg's final interview with law enforcement, he reiterated Joe's sentiment.

[G]

You know, we had been planning this trip all year long, physically training for it, Joe and I. Aaron, his heart never really seemed to be in it, but he kept saying he wanted to go. And we've been hunting together for years and years. This was our seventh or eighth year hunting together.

[D]

I made the three of you.

[G]

Yeah, okay. And so I wasn't just gonna tell him that, you know, if you're not gonna get in shape, you're not gonna go. I wanted to. I didn't do that. I knew that he had been drinking a lot. Joe told Me that he'd been drinking a lot. He showed up, and he clearly just did not look that well. And right then and there, I wanted to be like, dude, you're not coming with us. But I just. I didn't have the. I didn't have the heart to do it. And I'd give anything to go back and tell him that you're not going. But we didn't do that. And I figured, you know, well, he'll learn his. And, you know, we're gonna run his ass into the ground, and he's gonna be dragging ass, and next time, maybe he'll take it more seriously. I figured that he'd make it to camp and he'd be so beat that he'd just lay in camp and wouldn't actually hunt. And I'm also thinking, well, good, you can just stay in camp and be a drunk and watch after the horse and the mule, and we'll. We'll go hunt elk, and maybe that works out better anyways.

[B]

This, I think, is enough to explain Greg and Joe's behavior. Even putting the elk aside, they knew Aaron shouldn't have been allowed within 10 miles of the backcountry. When they had their disagreement and Aaron left, they knew they shouldn't have allowed him to strike out on his own. They knew they should have done more to look for him in the subsequent days. And they admitted to investigators that Aaron wasn't prepared either mentally or physically, to survive the snowstorm.

[G]

Although he wasn't in good condition, I felt like he could walk a trail system to where he knew the cache was. And you think doable.

[C]

Even somebody possibly incapacitated with alcohol trail.

[G]

Doable?

[C]

Doable in a day.

[G]

At the time, I thought that. I mean, in retrospect, I think it was obviously too much.

[B]

With this regret and guilt nagging at their hearts, it was easier for them to let Christine call law enforcement. They didn't want to be blamed for their friend's death, and it was heartbreaking to look at their actions full in the face. That's my theory, anyway. I don't know if it's true, and it doesn't make this story any less tragic. In fact, Greg said something in that last interview that makes this story, if possible, even more devastating. Greg said he noticed that the amount of alcohol Aaron brought with him was less than he would normally consume in five to seven days. He theorized that Aaron intended to use that trip to, quote, dry out and attempt to get his life together. He believed it was Aaron's intention all along to go to the gear cache on his own and work through the withdrawal process alone.

[G]

Now, I. My theory is that I think that Aaron was about to go through severe withdrawals. I know for a fact that he was running out of alcohol, and I feel like he was abusing those pills and taking way more than he should have. I can't prove that, but that's what I feel like. And I think that he probably didn't want us to see it. I think he was probably going to be real sick for a few days, and we thought maybe that was best, like. And told his wife that he was. He was coming up here to clear his head and get healthy. And in my mind, that would mean go through detox, come out off the alcohol, and hopefully try and stay off of it. I think that in his mind, I think he was going to go up there and he was going to spend a week in that canvas tent with the fire, and he was just going to drink the rest of the alcohol that he had and then just let it go, get out of his system. And hopefully, you know, he wouldn't have to go through an embarrassing detox because he had employees and he, you know, he wouldn't want anybody to. To see that. And I don't think he ever thought he was going to shoot an elk. I think he wanted to kind of go camping and clear his body of all that stuff.

[B]

This is the first time this theory has been mentioned, but it does help explain why Greg and Joe didn't do more to look for Aaron. If they thought he wanted to be alone, they may have decided it would be better to give him space. And if Aaron was going through alcohol withdrawal, it would also explain why he didn't do more to get help or get out on his own. But while that helps explain the strange and confounding circumstances that surround this story, it also casts yet another shadow on Eren's death. If Greg is right, Aaron's attempt to recover himself, to restore his relationships with his family and friends and get his life and his marriage back on track, is, in a weird way, what killed him. Rather than emerge from the mountains a new and better man, he didn't emerge at all.

Christine knew this trip was the wrong way for her husband to kick his alcohol addiction, but she couldn't convince him to stay home.

[G]

She probably, if she was to be honest with herself, would not be shocked that this happened. She begged him not to go. She even bought him a gift card to the Spot website so that he could go and get a spot to bring with him. But he wouldn't do it just because.

[B]

He'S so hard headed.

[G]

She probably knew that it was coming at some point. If it wasn't this, it was gonna be motorcycle wreck the next day or the next week or it was, it was going to be something.

[B]

Of course, Christine wasn't out in the mountains with Aaron. Greg and Joe were. And Greg can't help but wonder if this story would have had a different ending if he'd left his elk to look for his friend.

[G]

You know, looking back that.

You know, that really, really haunts me a lot.

You know, right then should have left that elk and gone down there and looked for his ass.

You know, we just, we thought he was gonna make it to that sunlight camp.

So in our minds we thought that he was probably having a hard time but it was early in the day so we thought that.

He was gonna make, make it up there. And it was only Sunday and he said he'd be back Monday or Tuesday.

And so we're, and we're, you know, we got this, this elk and now, you know, not that the, Aaron's not a priority, but my priority is, okay, I got, I got meat down. I need to take care of it right now.

[B]

In the months and years that followed, Aaron's family and friends were left to pick up the pieces.

[C]

How's the boy doing?

[G]

He's, I haven't actually spoken to him. I've just spoken to Joe who talks to him. Basically he's just confused because, you know, that daddy's not dead, daddy's missing, but we don't know if he's coming back type of a thing.

At this point. She may have come, told him. She may have just told him he's, he's dead. I don't know what she's told him, but he's just like any young boy would be. That stab just disappeared off the face of the earth.

[B]

Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If you'd like to see images from this case, head over to themateater.com blood trails and click on the case file. For this episode, we've posted photos of Greg, Aaron and Joe along with a map of Aaron's route and some other official documents. A big thanks to Sheriff Ronneberg, Yannis Putelis, Park County Undersheriff Tad Dykstra and Paul Hoyt who was the voice of the police reports. If you have a tip about this case or another case you think we should cover, send us an [e-mail] that's B L O O D T R A I l s themeateater.com See you next time. And stay safe out there.

[A]

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