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Rebecca had planned to meet her roommate, Jessica Puitova, at 7:00 PM that evening. When Rebecca didn’t show up, but they didn’t speak, Jessica assumed she’d forgotten the time or decided to stay up late to watch the sunset. Around 9:00 PM, she began to feel tired. Around 10:00 PM, she pumped up her tires, but to no avail. At 11:00 PM, Jessica contacted the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office. The operator noted the information and immediately forwarded it to the Sawtooth Area Emergency Response and Coordination Center. Záchranári arrived at the Iron Creek hiking trailhead shortly after midnight. Rebecca’s car was still there, parked exactly where she’d left it. The doors were locked. Inside, police found her purse, keys, a half-empty bottle of iced tea, and a sketchbook. Do not use your phone in your car. This gave the search team new hope. If she were small, she could have called for help, and they could locate her signal. They immediately began searching. The return signal was weak but unstable, coming from the high mountains near the lake, but its exact location could not be determined. After several hours, the signal still had not been transmitted. The battery was dead or the phone was dead.
At dawn on August 15th, the official search began. Forest rangers, miners, and patrol officers emerged from underground and searched the vast valleys of the Iron Creek Trail and the surrounding wilderness. Rescuers, equipped with thermal imaging cameras, flew low over slopes and valleys. Drones were used to inspect areas inaccessible by road. For the first three days, the weather was favorable. Rescuers combed every section of the trail, every alternative route, every rocky outcrop where someone might have fallen. They explored the lake’s inlets, the creek bed, and the dense forest, where visibility was almost zero. They shouted until they were hoarse. They strained their ears, searching for any sound that might indicate her presence, but nothing: no response, no footsteps, not even a slow pace that could be definitively attributed to her.
On Wednesday, the search intensified. As we descended the cliffs, waded through icy streams, and checked abandoned campsites for fish and straw, the dogs picked up tracks in several places, but without convincing results. Every trail ended in chaos, the scents of other hikers mingling with those of other hikers. By the end of the first week, more than 200 people had joined the pilgrimage. Local television stations broadcast daily updates. Rebecca’s photo was featured on missing persons posters across the country. Her family flew in from Oregon and joined volunteers along the road, handing out flyers and asking anyone with information to come forward. Her father told the reporter that Rebecca was intelligent but curious. If she got hurt, she would find a way to make herself known. If she got lost, she would stay in the same place, waiting for someone to find her. He couldn’t understand how she could have disappeared in the middle of the night on a road traveled by dozens of people every week.
Her bank statements were checked. They checked her statements to ensure she wasn’t intending to leave voluntarily. Nothing out of the ordinary emerged. Everyone described Rebecca as stable, happy, and fulfilled. There were no signs of depression, conflict, or anything else that would suggest she had left voluntarily. They even consulted a forensic psychologist to confirm her identity. The analyst concluded that the city and circumstances of her departure were uncertain. The hypothesis was too likely, too unpredictable. A crime of opportunity would have left traces in such a setting, but there were none.
After two weeks, the official search was scaled back. The sheriff’s office released a statement explaining that all available resources had been exhausted, but that the search would continue, albeit at a reduced intensity. The family was devastated. Jessica Puit later described that announcement as the moment she realized Rebecca might never return home. About four months later, small groups resumed the search on weekends. Volunteers who had never met Rebecca organized their own expeditions into the wilderness, hoping to find a lead that had eluded the experts. Online communities dedicated to searching for the unknown analyzed maps, shared theories, and proposed new authorities for the search. Despite all their efforts, determination, and hope, nothing changed. Rebecca Hollisová remained unfaithful.
The case was closed after an unspecified date. Investigators left the files open but regularly reviewed them for new leads, but to no avail. In public statements, the head of the investigation admitted that Rebecca’s disappearance was one of the most serious cases he had ever handled. There were no flaws in his plans, no environmental hazards that could explain the complete lack of evidence, but no trace after she’d disposed of her body. It was as if she had simply vanished into thin air.
Rebecca’s family didn’t give up. Every few months, they returned to the Sawtooth Mountains and followed the last known tracks. They distributed new flyers at trailheads, contacted park rangers, and informed the local police of her case. To commemorate the first anniversary, they organized a memorial walk along the Iron Creek Trail. About 30 people participated, including several volunteers from the backcountry. They walked in silence, each holding a candle, but gathered at the lake to share memories of Rebecca. Rebecca’s mother gave a short speech, saying they still believed she was out there somewhere, but that they had never stopped looking.
At that very moment, less than five miles away, Rebecca Hollisová was still alive. Buried deep within, she had gone so mad that she was sinking into total darkness, having long since lost track of time. But she didn’t know someone was still looking for her.
It was published on August 11, 2018, almost immediately after Rebecca’s disappearance. Three men from the Boise-based expedition group Mountain Hollow Adventures had spent the previous weeks exploring poorly documented cave systems in the Sawtooth region. While not professional cavers, they had little experience in underground mapping and had also neglected previous research. The group’s leader, Derek Pullman, a 34-year-old executive for a hiking equipment company, had found a series of limestone caves near Redfish Lake in old forestry records that had never been fully explored. These records are vague, dating back to the early 1980s, but most described the caves as unstable or unsuitable for public access—exactly the kind of place Derek wanted to document.
On the morning of December 11th, Derek, accompanied by two companions, Ian Moss and Trevor Lang, headed to a remote access road about three kilometers from the main tourist centers around Redfish Lake. We parked the car on a pole and drove through thick jungle and slippery terrain for nearly an hour, until we reached the coordinates Derek had recorded on his GPS. The entrance to the cave system was barely visible, hidden behind a crumbling slope and overgrown bushes. If they hadn’t looked for it, they would surely have passed it by. The opening was narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to pass through. Derek entered first, followed by Ian and Trevor. They had to carry a helmet, spare batteries, a rope, climbing gear, and a handheld video camera to document their ascent.
The initial passage sloped slightly, forcing them to lean against the walls to avoid slipping. The air was cold and humid, with a faint mineral odor typical of limestone stavbas. After about ten meters, the corridor widened into a small chamber with a ceiling so low it made them feel suffocated. “Derek, you wrote down the time and place in a small notebook where you marked the route.” They walked carefully, checking the ground ahead for any loose rocks or sudden drops. Ian, who knew little about geology, pointed out veins in the rocks that indicated water had carved thousands of meters. The walls were smooth in places, covered with a thin layer of moisture that reflected the light in distinctive, iridescent patterns.
After half an hour of slow walking, they reached a crossroads where the main corridor split into two narrower tunnels. Derek chose the left one, which seemed less steep. They entered the tunnel one at a time, resting their backs against the rock. The tunnel wound downward, but the slope gradually eased until it reached the ground. Several times they had to crawl through passages where the ceiling dropped to less than a meter. Trevor later told investigators that he almost made it around one of the narrow alleys, but Derek was determined to find out where he was going.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably only fifteen minutes, the tunnel opened into a larger space. Derek stood up carefully, but looked around. The city was a circular structure, about four meters in diameter and with a ceiling about eight feet high. The floor was uneven, covered with gravel and small stones. It was the most vulnerable part of the city and utterly silent, and the only way to get rid of it was to get rid of it. Ian was the first to notice something unusual in the corner of the room. He called out to Derek, but he pointed to a substance that didn’t look like natural rock. Derek initially thought it was a pile of old camping gear, or some debris washed away by the flood. But as I got closer, the object became clearer: it was a human being.