On July 23rd, 2024, a group of tourists from Colorado stopped at a campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. The temperature was 32° C, and the old wooden toilets installed in a remote part of the campground in the 1990s had not been used for a long time. One of them had been boarded up almost two decades ago.
Mark Johnson, a 37-year-old engineer from Denver, was looking for a place to pitch his tent away from noisy family groups. His companions had already set up camp near the main trail. But Mark preferred quiet. Walking around the abandoned recreation area, he stumbled upon three old toilets. Two of them were open, but clearly not functioning.
The third was tightly boarded up with planks that had turned black from time and moisture. Curiosity got the better of him. Mark took a folding knife out of his backpack and began prying at the nails. The boards gave way more easily than expected. The wood was rotten and the metal was rusted through.

After half an hour of work, he removed the main board covering the entrance. It was dark inside. Mark turned on his phone’s flashlight and shown it into the opening. At first, he saw a plastic container and wooden walls, typical for such structures. But when the beam of light fell on the far corner, Mark froze. Human bones lay on the floor.
The skull lay separate from the spine. The ribs were scattered in disorder. The long bones of the arms and legs were at unnatural angles. There were no clothes left, only decayed scraps of fabric stuck to the wooden boards. Next to the bones lay a halfdecomposed leather wallet and several metal objects, buttons, a jacket zipper, and a ring.
Mark ran out of the restroom and immediately called park services. 40 minutes later, a group of rangers arrived, led by an employee who had been working in the Great Smoky Mountains for 15 years. He examined the find and immediately contacted the Tennessee State Police. The detective on duty arrived at the scene 2 hours later.
In her 18 years with the police, she had seen a lot, but such discoveries were still disturbing. The investigator carefully photographed the site before allowing the medical examiner to enter. The county’s chief medical examiner arrived with a team of forensic scientists at 400 p.m. It took 3 hours to recover the remains.
The bones were carefully labeled and packaged for further examination. The expert immediately noted that the remains belonged to an adult, presumably a woman, and had been there for a very long time, at least 10 years. The wallet proved to be the key to solving the mystery. Plastic cards were preserved inside, although most of the information was illegible.
However, the driver’s license was partially restored. The name was clearly visible. Emily Rose Parker. The detective immediately ran the name through the missing person’s database. The result appeared in a few minutes. Emily Rose Parker, 28 years old, had been reported missing on August 10th, 2004. She was last seen at a campground in the same park.
The search lasted 2 months, but no traces were found. The case was closed as a disappearance under unexplained circumstances. The investigator pulled out the archived case file. Emily Parker was married to David Parker, a building contractor from Nashville. At the time of her disappearance, she was 28 years old and worked as a sales manager for a medical equipment company.
The couple had no children. According to her husband’s testimony, Emily went hiking alone. She often did this when he had to work on weekends. Emily was supposed to return home on the evening of August 11th, but she did not show up. David called the police on the morning of August 12th. The search operation began immediately.

Rescue teams combed the trails within a 10-mi radius of the campground where Emily had last registered. Dogs, helicopters, and volunteers were used. Emily’s car was found in the campground parking lot, a red 2001 Honda Civic sedan. Her personal belongings were in the car, a backpack with camping gear, a tent, a sleeping bag, and 3 days worth of food.
The keys were under the driver’s seat. There were no signs of a struggle or coercion. David Parker was actively involved in the search. He came to the park every day, talked to the rangers, and handed out photos of his wife to other tourists. The man looked genuinely concerned and depressed. He told anyone who would listen what a wonderful woman Emily was, how much he loved her, and how desperately he wanted her to come home.
Investigators thoroughly checked his alibi. On the weekend Emily disappeared, David was working on a house construction site in the suburbs of Nashville. He had several witnesses, the workers he had been working with, from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on August 10th. On August 11th, he was at home calling Emily’s relatives to see if she had contacted any of them.
His alibi seemed ironclad. The search continued until October. Gradually, the number of volunteers dwindled. Professional search teams also wound down their operations. The case was reclassified as a long-term missing person’s investigation. David filed a claim with the insurance company to have his wife declared dead 7 years after her disappearance as required by law.
In 2011, he received an insurance payout of $250,000. He said he used the money to pay off his mortgage and continue searching for his wife through private investigators. Now that Emily’s remains had been found, it was up to the detective to figure out what exactly had happened. 20 years ago in that abandoned toilet in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The medical examiner conducted a preliminary examination of the bones in the morg. Eio the skull had cracks that could have been the result of either trauma during life or the natural process of decomposition. Several ribs were broken. There were strange marks on the left radius that did not correspond to normal fractures.
more accurate conclusions could only be made after a complete forensic examination, which would take several weeks. The investigator decided to start by reintering David Parker. Over the past 20 years, he could have forgotten details of his testimony or made a mistake. In addition, the discovery of the remains in such a place raised questions.
How did Emily’s body end up in a boarded up toilet? Why did no one notice the smell of decomposition? And most importantly, was it an accident or a crime? The detective carefully studied the photos of the site where the body was found. The toilet was boarded up from the outside. This meant that Emily could not have gotten there herself and boarded up the exit from the inside.
Someone had placed her body in the toilet and then boarded it up. But why? and why this particular place. David Parker now lived in a different house. After receiving the insurance payout, he sold his old house in Nashville and moved to the suburbs of Memphis. The detective found his address through tax records.
He was now 52 years old and still working as a contractor, but now he owned his own small construction company. When the investigator rang his doorbell on the morning of July 27th, David did not open the door immediately. He stared at the stranger with the police badge through the peepphole for a long time. Finally, the door opened. David had aged.
His hair had turned gray and his face was covered with deep wrinkles, but his physique remained strong. Broad shoulders, calloused hands of a man accustomed to physical labor. He was dressed in work jeans and a plaid shirt. When the detective told him about the discovery of Emily’s remains, David sank into a chair.
He was silent for several minutes, staring at the floor. Then he covered his face with his hands. “I always knew she was dead,” he said quietly. “I’ve known it for 20 years. Emily would never have left me. She would have found a way to contact me if she were alive.” The detective wrote down every word. There was no surprise in his voice, only fatigue and a kind of relief.
“Tell me again about that last weekend,” the investigator asked. David repeated the same story he had told 20 years ago. “Eily had gone camping on Friday evening. They had dinner together and watched TV. She left on Saturday morning. He stayed at home planning to work in the yard, but then he was called to a construction site.
There were problems with the foundation. “I worked late into the evening on Saturday,” David said. Emily was supposed to be back for dinner on Sunday. When she wasn’t home by 10 p.m., I started to worry. I called her cell phone, but it was out of range. The detective checked his words against the records from 20 years ago.

Everything matched down to the smallest detail. Too precise for someone who was supposed to have forgotten the details after so many years. “Do you remember what time you finished work on Saturday?” she asked. “Aaround 8:00 in the evening,” David replied without hesitation. “How did you get home from the suburbs?” “How long did the drive take?” “About 40 minutes.
I was home by 8.” The investigator took notes. It was about a 2-hour drive from the construction site in the suburbs of Nashville to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If David finished work at 8:00 in the evening, he could easily have reached the park by 11. Enough time to find Emily and do what had been done.
David, I have to ask you straight. The detective said, “Your wife was insured for a large sum. You received that money 7 years later. Were you having financial problems in 2004?” David raised his head and looked at her intently. “Do you think I killed my wife for the money?” he asked. “I don’t think. I’m finding out the facts.
” “Yes, we had debts.” “I took out a large loan to buy new equipment for the business. The payments were difficult, but I loved Emily. I would never have hurt her.” The detective asked for the insurance documents. David brought a folder with papers. The policy had been taken out 3 years before Emily’s disappearance. The insurance amount was $250,000.
Quite a large sum for a young couple without children. Why such a large insurance policy? Asked the investigator. Emily insisted. She worked for a medical company and saw how illness and accidents could ruin families financially. She wanted us to be protected. The detective studied the documents more closely.
The insurance policy was taken out on both spouses. But David’s insurance was only for $100,000 while Emily was insured for a quarter of a million. Why does the wife have more insurance? She asked. Emily earned more than I did, David explained. She was a sales manager and earned good commissions. my business was just starting out. It made sense, but the detective still noted the oddity.
Usually, men insured themselves for large sums, especially if they did dangerous work such as construction. After the interview, the investigator drove to the site of the old construction project where David had worked on weekends 20 years ago. The house had long since been completed and the area landscaped. But the neighbors might remember something. Mrs.
Jenkins, an elderly woman who lived across the street, remembered that weekend. Yes, they were working there on Saturday. She said the noise went on until late at night. I even complained to the district manager. You’re not supposed to make that much noise on the weekend. Do you remember how many people were working there? Three or four people.
One tall man was in charge of the others. Dark hair, strong build. The description matched David, but that didn’t rule out the possibility that he could have left before 8:00 p.m. The investigator contacted the workers who had worked with David in 2004. Two were found through union records, both remembered that weekend. “David left early on Saturday,” said one of them, Jimmy Hall.
“He said his wife had plans and he had to be home.” It was around 5:00. Are you sure about the time? Absolutely. I remember because the guys and I were still working after dark and David had already left. The second version differed radically from David’s testimony. If he left work at 5:00 on Saturday evening, he had enough time to get to the park before dark and commit the crime.
The detective returned to the station and requested David’s phone records for August 2004. Mobile operators did not keep data for very long, but landline companies might have archives. 3 days later, the response arrived. On Saturday, August 10th, several calls were made from David’s home phone. The last one was at 5:30 p.m.
After that, there was no activity until Sunday morning. If David was at home and made a call at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, then he really did leave work around 5:00 p.m. He had time to get to the park. Meanwhile, the results of the forensic examination arrived. Emily Parker died from multiple head injuries. Traces of at least seven blows with a blunt object were found on her skull.
The rib fractures were consistent with severe blows to the chest. There were signs of binding on the bones of her hands, thin grooves on her wrists left by rope or wire. The most frightening discovery was in the report on the condition of the leg bones. The left femur had a fracture that occurred during life and was not related to the cause of death.
The nature of the fracture indicated that the leg had been deliberately broken, possibly to prevent the victim from moving. Emily Parker was tortured before her death. The medical examiner also found tiny metal particles on one of the ribs. Spectral analysis showed that it was iron with impurities characteristic of construction tools.

Perhaps the murder weapon was a hammer or crowbar. The detective studied every detail of the medical examiner’s report. The picture of the crime was becoming increasingly gruesome. Emily wasn’t just killed, she was tortured. The broken leg meant that the killer wanted to prevent her from escaping. The bound hands indicated that the victim had been helpless for a long time.
Multiple blows to the head indicated rage or a desire to cause maximum suffering. The investigator returned to examine the crime scene. The abandoned toilet was half a mile from the main trail, hidden behind thick bushes. 20 years ago, this area of the campground was rarely used. It was the perfect place to hide a body and not be discovered.
But how did the killer know about this place? A tourist visiting the park for the first time would hardly find such a remote spot. Someone who had been here before knew this place. The detective requested the campground’s registration records for the 5 years prior to Emily’s disappearance. David and Emily Parker did indeed visit the park regularly.
Their names appeared in the registration logs every two to three months starting in 1999. They came especially often in the spring and summer. They always chose the same campsite, number 13, located closest to the area where the abandoned toilet was found. David knew the area very well. The investigator decided to conduct an experiment.
She timed how long it would take to walk from site number 13 to the place where the remains were found. The walk took 12 minutes at a leisurely pace. Carrying a corpse would double the time, but it was still quite realistic. The park archives contained records of when the toilets in that area had been closed.
They had last been serviced in June 2004. After that, a decision was made to move the sanitary facilities closer to the main trails. The old toilets were supposed to be demolished, but that never happened. They were simply boarded up and left. This meant that in August 2004, the toilets had not been in use for 2 months.
The killer knew this or found out by accident while exploring the area. The detective contacted the rangers who had worked in the park 20 years ago. Most of them had already retired, but she managed to find three. Tom Wilson, the ranger who took Mark Johnson’s call, had been working in the park since 1987. He remembered the search for Emily well.
“We combed every inch,” he said. “The dogs worked in three shifts.” But no one went near the boarded up toilets. “Why would they? They were closed. There was no smell. It never occurred to anyone that there might be a body in there. “Why was there no smell?” asked the detective. “The toilets were airtight, thick wooden walls, tightly fitted boards.
Plus, the ventilation pipes were plugged when they were closed. It was practically a sealed container. This explained why the body had not been found earlier. David had chosen the perfect place to hide the evidence. The investigator decided to find witnesses who might have seen David in the park on that fateful weekend. The archives contain the contact details of people involved in the Emily disappearance case.
Most of the phone numbers were no longer in service, but several people were located. A couple from Louisiana, Robert and Mary Simpson, had been camping near the Parker’s site that weekend. They remembered Emily well, a pretty woman with short dark hair who had come alone. She pitched her tent on Friday evening, Mary Simpson said on the phone.
We talked to her. She was a nice woman and said her husband was working and couldn’t come. Did you see her on Saturday? I saw her making breakfast in the morning. Then she left with her backpack. She didn’t come back. Did you see any unfamiliar men that day? Mary paused. You know, there was one strange incident.
Late on Saturday night around 11 p.m., I woke up to the sound of a car. I looked out the tent window and saw someone driving up with their headlights off. I heard a door slam, then footsteps on the gravel. Did you see the person? No, it was dark. But half an hour later, the car drove away, also without its lights on. What kind of car was it? Dark, large, a pickup truck or SUV.
In 2004, David Parker drove a black Ford pickup truck. The detective found this information in old insurance company records. Mary Simpson’s testimony confirmed the investigation’s version of events. David could have come to the park late on Saturday evening, met his wife, and killed her. The timing matched, but the question of motive remained.

The insurance policy had been taken out 3 years before the murder. It didn’t look like a spontaneous decision to kill his wife for money. Most likely, the plan had been developing gradually. The detective decided to examine David’s financial situation in more detail. Through bank records, she obtained statements for his accounts for 2003 and 2004.
The picture was depressing. David was indeed in serious debt. The loan for the equipment was $80,000. The monthly payments were $2,400. With a family income of 4 and a half thousand a month, it was an unbearable burden. By the summer of 2004, David had only $300 in his account. The bank had already sent warnings about late payments.
In a month, they could take the equipment and file for bankruptcy. 250,000 in insurance would solve all their problems. But the detective found another interesting fact. In March 2004, a large sum of money, $15,000, was withdrawn from Emily’s account. The money was transferred to the account of a certain Michael Torres in Atlanta. Who was Michael Torres? And why did Emily transfer money to him? The investigator ran the name through the databases.
Michael Torres, 31 years old, worked as a fitness instructor at a gym in Atlanta. Divorced, no children, clean record, no criminal offenses. The detective called him. Emily Parker, Michael asked when she introduced herself. My god, I haven’t heard that name in 20 years. What happened to her? She’s dead. murdered in 2004.
A long silence. I knew something was wrong. Michael finally said she just disappeared. She didn’t answer her phone. She didn’t show up. And then I found out she was missing. Tell me about your relationship with Emily. Michael sighed. We were seeing each other. She came to Atlanta for work every few weeks. We met at the hotel gym.
She said she was married but unhappy in her marriage. How long did the relationship last? About a year from the spring of 2003 to the summer of 2004. The last time I saw her was in July 2004. Did she talk about divorce? All the time, but she kept putting it off. She said her husband would take the breakup badly, that they had financial problems. Emily was a kind person.
She didn’t want to cause any pain. What about the transfer of $15,000? She gave me the money to open my own fitness club. She said it was an investment in our future. After she disappeared, I returned the money to her husband. The detective wrote down every word. The picture was becoming clearer. Emily had a lover.

She was planning a divorce. David might have found out about it. Did Emily say her husband suspected your relationship? Not directly, but she had become more cautious in recent months. She called less often and spent less time in Atlanta. She said David was asking a lot of questions about her business trips. Was she going to tell him the truth? Yes.
In that last conversation in July, she said she couldn’t live a lie anymore. She planned to talk to her husband after returning from her next trip. Emily was going to confess her infidelity to David and demand a divorce. Instead, she died. Now, everything fell into place. David Parker was facing a perfect storm of circumstances.
Financial ruin, his wife’s infidelity, the threat of divorce, and the loss of his only source of income. The quarter million dollar insurance payout was the only way to save the situation. The murder plan was carefully thought out. David knew his wife would be going camping alone. He lied to his colleagues about his finishing time, creating a false alibi for himself.
He arrived at the park under cover of darkness when the other tourists were asleep. He met with Emily, perhaps under the pretext of reconciliation or an important conversation. Then the torture began. David broke his wife’s leg so she couldn’t run away. He tied her hands. He may have tortured her, demanding a confession of infidelity or trying to find out the details of her relationship with Michael.
In the end, he beat her to death with a construction tool, a hammer or a crowbar. He hid the body in an abandoned toilet that he knew from previous trips. He nailed it shut with boards, creating a sealed grave. He drove home that same evening, leaving Emily’s car in the parking lot to make it look like she had simply disappeared in the woods. The plan worked perfectly.
For 20 years, David Parker lived freely, enjoying the money he received for murdering his own wife. But now that the remains had been found, his carefully constructed alibi was beginning to crumble. The detective gathered all the evidence into a single case. False statements about working hours, financial crisis, knowledge of the area, witnesses who saw a dark pickup truck in the park, his wife’s infidelity, and the threat of divorce, metal particles on the bones consistent with construction tools. Each detail individually could
have had an innocent explanation, but together they formed an irrefutable picture of premeditated murder. All that remained was to arrest David Parker and charge him with first-degree murder. 20 years later, justice finally caught up with the man who thought he had perfectly hidden his crime in an abandoned toilet in a national