Boy Missing For 11 Dyas Walks Out Of Woods But He Is Not Alone

In all of Steve Kloster’s years of being a Park Chief Ranger, he had seen many cases like this before, but this time, he knew that there was more to this case. He looked down at his map, desperate to find what he had been missing all along. But it felt impossible.

He knew how hard it would be to find the boy in the 6,700-acre area.

Time was no longer on his side, the boy had been missing for 11 days. But he was desperate to find him. There were so many unanswered questions, why did the boy’s stepdad take so long to report the incident? And did he have something to do with it?

The Call Of The Wild

Eighteen-year-old Austin Bohannon had gotten himself into a desperate situation. He had accompanied his stepfather on a hike into the harsh wilderness of the notorious Smoky Mountain trails.

Although young Austin was an experienced outdoorsman and an avid hiker, the many search parties that trawled the forest for days could find no trace of him.

They had sent helicopters and dogs in hopes of finding him, but they hadn’t found hide nor hair of the boy — it was as if he had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

A Day Like Any Other

Our story began on a normal day. Austin and his stepfather, Hubert, were hiking along a trail that they had walked many times before, but  the pair didn’t realize that tragedy was about to strike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Austin and Hubert were familiar with this particular trail — familiar enough to know that they couldn’t let their guard down for a second. The perilous trail had few landmarks, which would make getting lost in the eerie canopy of trees extremely easy. Hubert and Austin should have known better.

A Valuable Commodity

As Hubert and Austin made their way along the winding creek, they kept their eyes on the shrubs and plants that grew alongside the riverbank. They knew that what they were doing was illegal, but the market for this particular root was huge.

Although it is forbidden to remove this plant from the national park, its root could fetch a whopping $600 per pound — the hefty sum was mainly due to health foods and energy drinks’ rise in popularity. But Hubert had no idea that he was about to make a fatal mistake.

According To Hubert

According to Hubert’s report, it was while the pair were walking along the riverbank that he slipped on a wet rock. He flailed wildly before steadying himself, but it was already too late. His spectacles slid down his nose and plummeted into the rushing river.

Hubert let out a cry of dismay — without his glasses, he couldn’t see the trail. How would he be able to negotiate the rocky mountain path without them? Austin, knowing that leaving his stepfather’s spectacles in the river wasn’t an option. Determined, he jumped into the river after them.