When a Yellowstone National Park ranger found an empty backpack and map abandoned near a trail, he could not have imagined that four years later he would discover one of the most shocking finds in the park’s history. Human remains neatly packed inside a hollow tree trunk. August 10th, 2008, Daniel Moore, a 32-year-old software engineer from Denver, Colorado, arrived at Yellowstone National Park for a solo hiking trip.
He planned to spend 5 days on a route through the western part of the park where the trails are less crowded and nature has retained its pristine appearance. Moore was an experienced hiker. Over the past 7 years, he had made more than 20 trips to the mountains of Colorado and neighboring states. His backpack weighed 28 kg and contained everything he needed for an autonomous stay in the wilderness.
a tent, a sleeping bag, a gas burner, six days worth of food, and a water filter. At the ranger station, Moore registered his route and obtained permission to set up camp in the back country. According to his plan, he was to follow the Shosonyi Creek Trail to Shosonyi Lake, then turn northwest to Fern Creek and set up base camp on the third day of the hike.
From there, he planned to make side trips to nearby lakes and returned to his car on August 15th. Moore left his green Wrangler Jeep in the parking lot at the entrance to the Shosonyi Trail and set out around 8:00 a.m. The first two days of the hike passed without incident. Moore met several groups of tourists walking in the opposite direction and exchanged the usual greetings with them.
The weather was typical for August in Yellowstone. During the day, the temperature rose to 23° C, and at night, it dropped to 7°. There was no rain, but storm clouds often gathered in the mountains, dispersing by evening. On August 12th, around noon, a group of tourists from California met more on the trail 4 km from Shosonyi Lake.

They later told investigators that he looked cheerful and content, stopping to talk about the weather and the route. Moore said he planned to camp at Fern Creek and spend two nights there. This was the last confirmed sighting of him. On August 15th, Moore did not show up at the parking lot where his Jeep was waiting for him.
By evening, park officials had declared him missing. A search and rescue team set out on his route early in the morning on August 16th. They found his backpack and topographic map near the trail 3 km from his planned campsite. But Moore himself was nowhere to be found. The backpack was neatly leaning against a pine tree as if it had been placed there on purpose.
The map was folded and lay nearby. There were no signs of a struggle or damage to the equipment. All of Moore’s belongings were still in the backpack. A sleeping bag, tent, food, stove, and spare clothes. Only a water bottle and a small knife were missing. Money and documents were left untouched. The searchers expanded the search area, combing the territory within a 5 km radius of where the backpack was found.
They used service dogs, a helicopter, and a thermal imager, but no traces of more were found. The search continued for 2 weeks. 47 people, including rangers, volunteers, and search and rescue specialists, participated in the search. They checked all the streams, ravines, rock crevices, and dense thicket in the area.
They paid special attention to areas where a person could have fallen or been injured. The helicopter made 12 flights photographing the area from the air. Divers searched lakes and deep sections of streams. On August 29th, the search was officially called off. Daniel Moore’s case was transferred to the National Park Services cold case unit.
Investigators considered several possibilities: accident, wild animal attack, murder, or suicide. The bear theory seemed unlikely. Bears were rare in that area, and no signs of an attack were found. Suicide was also ruled out because Moore left no note and had purchased tickets to a concert shortly before his hike that was to take place a month after his return.
Moore’s family hired a private investigator and offered a $10,000 reward for any information. They distributed flyers with Daniel’s photo throughout the region and appealed to local residents. Moore’s brother, Robert, visited Yellowstone every 3 months and searched for traces of the missing man on his own.

He retraced his brother’s entire route several times, questioning tourists and rangers, but to no avail. Time passed and the case was gradually forgotten. Another folder labeled Daniel Moore missing appeared in the National Park Service archives. Rangers periodically found items while on patrol, a piece of fabric, an empty can, old shoes, and checked to see if they were related to Moore’s disappearance.
But all the findings turned out to be false leads. In 2009, another tourist, Michael Greenberg from Oregon, disappeared in the same area of the park. He was found 4 days later with a broken leg 10 km from the trail. He had gotten lost during a thunderstorm and fallen into a small crevice. Greenberg’s story was reminiscent of Moore’s case, but it did not provide any new leads.
The search resumed for several days, but again, nothing was found. On July 21st, 2012, Ranger Thomas Collins was patrolling the trail 8 kilometers from where Moore’s backpack had been found four years earlier. The weather was hot with temperatures reaching 28°. Collins noticed an unusual smell that grew stronger as he approached a group of fallen trees.
The smell was reminiscent of decay, but it was old and musty. The ranger decided to check the source. Among the fallen trunks, a large pine tree stood out, which had fallen several years ago during a storm. The trunk was hollow. The core had rotted before the tree fell. Collins looked into the cavity and saw something that made him immediately call for backup and cordon off the area.
Inside the hollow trunk lay human remains wrapped in a dark blue sleeping bag and tied with leather straps. Collins did not touch anything and immediately contacted the park dispatch service. 40 minutes later, a team of investigators led by Detective Margaret Stevens of the County Police and forensic expert Dr.
Harris arrived at the scene. The area was cordoned off with yellow tape within a radius of 50 m. A photographer took pictures of the site from different angles. Then the remains were carefully removed from the tree. The sleeping bag was the same brand as the one listed in Daniel Moore’s inventory. The initials were burned onto one of the straps using a homemade method.
The forensic expert conducted a preliminary examination right there on the spot. The skeleton was almost complete except for a few small bones from the feet. The skull had characteristic damage, a crack in the parietal region and a dent above the right temple. The lower jaw was broken in two places. Dr.

Harris noted that the jaw fractures had healed incorrectly, indicating that the victim had survived for several days or weeks after the injury. The remains were sent to a forensic laboratory in Billings, Montana. DNA analysis confirmed the identity. It was Daniel Moore. A detailed examination of the skeleton showed that death was caused by traumatic brain injury resulting from multiple blows with a heavy object.
Metal microparticles were found on the skull, which could have been left by the murder weapon. What was strange was how the body ended up in the tree. The trunk cavity was about 70 cm in diameter and nearly 2 m long. It would have taken considerable effort and time to place the body of an adult male there.
Someone clearly knew about this tree and used it as a hiding place. Detective Stevens began her reinvestigation by looking into all the people who were in the park during the period of Moore’s disappearance. The park administration provided lists of all registered visitors from August 7th to 15th, 2008.
The list included 234 people, including tourists, researchers, and temporary employees. Particular attention was paid to the park’s temporary workers, seasonal rangers, trail wardens, and technical staff. In the summer of 2008, seven temporary employees worked in the western part of the park. Five of them had impeccable reputations and had worked in the national park system for several years.
The other two required more thorough screening. Alan Hughes, a 37-year-old trail keeper, was hired in June 2008. His duties included patrolling trails in the western sector of the park, repairing signs and bridges over streams, cleaning up trash, and ensuring that visitors complied with park rules. Hughes lived in a staff cabin 20 km from where Moore’s backpack was found.
A review of Hughes’s background revealed some disturbing details. In 2006, he worked as a ranger in Glacier National Park in Montana, but was fired after tourists complained about his aggressive behavior. Visitors reported that Hughes rudely demanded to seek camping permits, threatened fines for minor violations, and stalked people while hiding in the woods.
One family filed a formal complaint claiming that Hughes broke into their camp in the middle of the night under the pretext of checking on them, but behaved inappropriately and frightened the children. In 2007, Hughes got a job at Grand Canyon Park, but only worked there for 4 months. He was fired after an incident with a group of college students.
According to eyewitnesses, Hughes accused the young people of violating camping rules, demanded that they leave the area immediately, and when the students tried to explain the situation, Hughes grabbed one of them by the shirt and pushed him. Park security intervened, but no formal report was filed. Hughes was simply asked to resign of his own accord.
Despite these incidents, the Yellowstone administration hired Hughes for a temporary job. The personnel department did not check his employment history thoroughly enough, limiting itself to checking for a clean criminal record. Hughes presented letters of recommendation that later turned out to be fake. Hughes duties included patrolling the very section of the trail where Daniel Moore disappeared.
His work schedule required him to be on the trail every day from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Hughes was supposed to check the condition of the trail. note damage to signs, remove fallen branches, and ensure that visitors complied with the established rules. Detective Stevens contacted several tourists who had encountered Hughes in August 2008.

Their recollections painted a picture of a man obsessed with authority and rules. Hughes nitpicked visitors over minor issues, incorrectly pitched tents, campfires not built in designated areas, talking too loudly. He would follow groups of tourists for long periods of time, appearing unexpectedly from behind trees and demanding to see their documents.
Gerald Wittmann, a tourist from Arizona, told investigators about his encounter with Hughes on August 12th, 2008, the same day that a group from California last saw Daniel Moore. Wittmann and his family had set up camp near Fern Creek, not far from where Moore planned to spend the night. Around 400 p.m., Hughes approached their camp and demanded to see their camping permit.
The family presented all the necessary documents, but Hughes claimed that their tent was set up too close to the creek and violated environmental regulations. He ordered them to move their camp 200 m further up the slope. Wittmann tried to object, pointing out that other tourists had set up tents in similar locations, but Hughes became aggressive.
He raised his voice, said he was finding the family for breaking the rules, and demanded that they pack up immediately. Wittman’s wife was frightened, and began packing their backpacks. Hughes stood nearby and watched them, occasionally making comments and criticizing their actions. After the family moved their camp, Hughes left along the trail toward Shosonyi Lake, which was where Daniel Moore was supposed to come from.
Wittmann remembered that Hughes was carrying a large hiking backpack and a long metal walking stick. Later, Wittmann saw smoke from a campfire in the direction the ranger had gone, but decided not to check it out. The family was frightened by Hughes’s aggressiveness and preferred to avoid further encounters with him.
This evidence led investigators to focus on Alan Hughes as the prime suspect. Detective Stevens requested a search warrant for his home and workplace. By that time, Hughes was no longer working at Yellowstone. His contract had expired in September 2008, and the park administration did not renew it due to complaints from visitors.
After leaving Yellowstone, Hughes returned to his hometown of Casper, Wyoming, where he rented a small house on the outskirts of town. He worked as a stalker at a sporting goods warehouse and led a reclusive lifestyle. Neighbors described him as a sullen man who rarely socialized with anyone and often left on weekends with a backpack and camping gear.
On July 27th, 2012, 6 days after Moore’s remains were found, police searched Hughes’s home. In the garage, they found a collection of knives and axes that Hughes allegedly used for hiking. One of the knives, a 20 cm hunting blade, attracted the investigators attention. There were microscopic spots on the blade, which initial analysis showed to be possible traces of blood.
In addition, a metal walking stick was found in the garage, the very one that tourist Wittmann had seen. There were dents and scratches on the knob of the stick, and an examination revealed the presence of organic particles. They also found detailed topographic maps of Yellowstone Park with markings made in red pencil. Some of the markings coincided with the locations where Moore’s backpack and remains were found.
In Hugh’s bedroom, police found a diary he had kept while working in the park. The entries were brief and business-like, but some pages contained strange comments about tourists. Hughes described park visitors as violators, nature invaders, and urban parasites. He was particularly annoyed by solo tourists whom he called arrogant idiots.
An entry from August 12th, 2008 read, “Another loner thinks the park was created for him, violates the rules, ignores warnings. People like this need to be taught a lesson.” The next entry was made only a week later and contained the phrase, “Problem solved. The park is cleaner.” These findings provided grounds for Hughes’s arrest.
On August 3rd, 2012, he was detained at his workplace without prior warning. Hughes did not resist arrest, but refused to answer questions without a lawyer. He was placed in the county jail and charged with first-degree murder. Laboratory tests confirmed that the stains on the knife belong to Daniel Moore.
DNA analysis showed an exact match with samples taken from the remains. Metal particles found on the victim’s skull matched the composition of the knob on Hughes’s cane. Experts also determined that the skull fractures could have been caused by such an object. Organic particles on the cane contained fragments of hair and skin, which genetic analysis linked to more In addition, soil particles characteristic of the location where the victim’s backpack was found were found in the sole of Hughes’s shoe.

All this evidence painted a convincing picture of Hugh’s involvement in the murder. Hughes’s court-appointed lawyer attempted to build a defense based on the theory of an accident. He claimed that his client could have found the tourist’s already dead body and for unknown reasons hidden it in a tree. However, this version did not explain the presence of the victim’s DNA on Hughes’s personal belongings and did not correspond to the nature of the injuries to the skull.
The trial began on January 21st, 2013 in Cody, Wyoming. The prosecutor presented a detailed picture of events based on physical evidence and witness testimony. According to the prosecution, Hughes met Moore on the trail in the afternoon of August 12th and picked a fight with him over a violation of some park rules. An argument ensued between the two men during which Hughes struck Moore on the head and face with his cane.
The first blow broke the victim’s jaw, but was not fatal. Moore tried to resist or flee, but received several more blows to the head, which led to his death from traumatic brain injury. After the murder, Hughes carried Moore’s backpack to the trail and left it there to make it look like the hiker had simply gotten lost or been the victim of an accident.
He wrapped the body in the victim’s sleeping bag, tied it with straps, and hid it in a hollow tree trunk that he knew about from his patrols of the area. The key witness for the prosecution was hiker Gerald Wittmann, who recounted an encounter with an aggressive Hughes on the day of Moore’s disappearance.
His testimony confirmed that the park ranger was in the area at the right time and was behaving inappropriately toward park visitors. The defense tried to cast doubt on the reliability of the DNA analysis and claimed that the evidence could have been planted. The lawyer also pointed to the lack of eyewitnesses to the murder itself and the fact that the motive for the crime did not appear to be serious enough.
However, the body of evidence was too convincing. The jury was particularly impressed by entries in Hughes’s diary which demonstrated his hostility towards tourists and his propensity for violence. A psychiatric expert described the defendant as a person with antisocial personality disorder and a tendency to be aggressive towards those he considered to be violators of the established order.
On March 14th, 2013, the jury found Alan Hughes guilty of firstdegree murder. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hughes listened to the sentence without emotion and showed no remorse for his actions. After the trial, Daniel Moore’s family finally got answers to the questions that had tormented them for 4 and 1/2 years.
Daniel’s remains were handed over to his relatives for burial. His brother Robert told reporters that the family was relieved that the killer had been punished, but that the pain of their loss would never go away. The Yellowstone National Park Administration conducted an internal investigation and made changes to its temporary employee hiring procedures.
Now background checks on candidates are more thorough, including mandatory communication with previous employers and psychological testing. The Daniel Moore case became one of the most high-profile crimes in the history of Yellowstone Park and showed how important it is to thoroughly vet the people who are entrusted with the safety of visitors.
The hollow tree where the remains of the murdered tourist had been hidden for 4 years was cut down and burned at the request of the victim’s