The Hanging Silence: The Terrifying Murder of Eric Lawrence

On a bright Thursday morning in June 2010, Eric Lawrence packed a tent, a sleeping bag, and three days’ worth of supplies into the trunk of his blue Honda Civic. He was 27, a quiet software engineer from Portland who preferred the stillness of mountains to the noise of the city. His plan was simple — a weekend of solitude in the Cascade Mountains, a few days alone beneath the green cathedral of Mount Hood National Forest.

He told his mother, Linda Lawrence, that he would call her on Sunday. It was a routine she knew well — her son always checked in after his solo trips. But that Sunday, the phone stayed silent. And it would remain silent for the next three years.

What began as a mother’s growing unease would unravel into one of Oregon’s darkest and most disturbing murder cases — a tale of hidden violence, illegal labor camps, and a man whose cruelty turned the forest into his hunting ground.

The Vanishing

The last confirmed sighting of Eric came from a gas station camera at 8:43 a.m. on June 25th, 2010. He filled his tank, bought a handful of energy bars, and asked for directions to Route 26 — the road leading toward Mount Hood. The cashier later recalled that he was polite, cheerful even.

By noon, clouds had begun gathering over the mountains. Eric parked his car near the start of the Timberline Trail — a popular route that wound through dense pine forest and into higher, quieter terrain. The area was dotted with warning signs about sudden weather changes and wildlife. But Eric was no novice hiker. He knew the risks. He set off anyway.

When he failed to return Sunday night, Linda called his phone repeatedly. It went straight to voicemail. By Monday morning, when he didn’t show up for work, she knew something was wrong.

Police discovered Eric’s car two days later in the same parking lot, locked, undisturbed. A jacket lay neatly folded in the back seat. Nearby, search teams followed faint bootprints leading into the woods. A mile in, they found his backpack — hanging inexplicably from a tree branch, two meters above the ground.

Inside: a flashlight, socks, a compass, half a bottle of water. His sleeping bag and tent were folded neatly nearby, as if packed by someone else. The spot was uneven and unsuitable for camping — not the kind of place Eric would ever choose.

And then — nothing. The footprints ended abruptly near a moss-covered boulder. The forest swallowed the trail whole.

The Search That Led Nowhere

For two weeks, volunteers and rescue dogs scoured every ravine, stream, and cave in a 20-square-kilometer radius. Helicopters circled overhead, but the canopy was too thick to see the ground.

The forest seemed to erase him.

By July, the official search was suspended. Linda refused to give up. She printed thousands of missing posters, offering a $5,000 reward. She talked to rangers, loggers, and shop owners across Oregon. She learned that ten hikers went missing in the Cascades each year — but most were found.

Her son’s case wasn’t one of them.

A year later, she hired Robert Clark, a private investigator and former Oregon State Police detective. Clark was skeptical but thorough. He walked the trails, spoke with locals, and studied weather records. Then he found something chilling — that same summer, a team of loggers had been working illegally in that forest.

They weren’t supposed to be there.

Most were undocumented workers, paid in cash by a foreman known only as Michael — a tall man with dark hair and a scar on his left cheek.

When Clark tracked down one of the workers, Carlos Mendes, the man spoke hesitantly, looking over his shoulder as if someone could still hear.

“Michael was dangerous,” Mendes said. “He made rules no one could break. He said if someone talked — they would hang like the others.”

At first, Clark thought it was a figure of speech. It wasn’t.

The Camp of Fear

According to Mendes, the illegal logging camp was hidden deep in the forest — makeshift barracks, a sawmill, and a container used as a tool shed.

Michael ruled through terror. He beat workers, withheld pay, and threatened anyone who disobeyed. Around late June, he grew paranoid. He ordered men to stay within 100 meters of the camp and forbade them from answering voices in the forest.

Chains began appearing around trees — “for lifting logs,” Michael claimed — though they hung far too high to serve any purpose.

One night, Mendes heard dragging sounds outside his cabin. In the morning, he saw deep furrows in the ground leading into the forest. He tried to tell others, but they told him to stay quiet — or end up like “the scarecrow.”

An older worker, Pedro Gonzalez, would later tell investigators that around that time, Michael had brought a young man in hiking clothes to camp — tied up and terrified.

“He said this was what happens to people who see too much,” Gonzalez recalled. The man was locked in the metal container for three days. The workers heard screams. Then silence.

Later, they saw Michael and two men dragging something heavy wrapped in tarp into the woods. When they came back, the cart was empty.

The Discovery

Three years passed.

Then, on October 28th, 2013, two brothers — Tom and Jerry Harrison — went hunting in a section of the forest about five kilometers from the trail where Eric had vanished.

At dawn, Jerry noticed something strange between two fir trees: a dark shape swaying gently in the wind. At first, he thought it was a fallen branch. Then he realized it was hanging.

What he found froze him in place.

Suspended upside down from a thick spruce branch was a human skeleton, bound by heavy metal chains. The hands were tied behind the back with a length of decayed rope. The remains hung nearly five meters above the ground.

The brothers called authorities immediately.

When forensic experts brought the remains down, they discovered the jeans, hiking boots, and a rusted watch. In the pockets — a damaged driver’s license bearing the name Eric Daniel Lawrence.

Skull fractures indicated multiple blows to the back of the head with a blunt object — a sledgehammer or heavy hammer.

Eric hadn’t vanished.
He had been murdered, then displayed — just as the workers had been warned.

The Man Behind the Chains

The discovery reignited the investigation. Mendes, Gonzalez, and another worker, Ricardo Vasquez, testified again. Vasquez remembered the foreman’s name: Michael Royce.

He also remembered Royce taking photographs — “proof,” he said, “that would keep everyone quiet.”

Investigators tracked down Pacific Timber Works, a small logging company that had once hired Royce as a foreman. His file described him perfectly: 46 years old, six-foot-two, dark hair, scar on his cheek. A criminal record for assault and illegal firearm possession.

A search warrant led police to a rented warehouse in suburban Portland. Inside were tools, axes, and a locked metal cabinet.

When they pried it open, what they found was the stuff of nightmares.

A Canon digital camera.
Several USB drives.
And a homemade photo album labeled “The Lessons.”

The files contained hundreds of photographs — victims tied up, beaten, and in some cases, dead. One folder was titled June 2010. Inside were photos showing a terrified Eric Lawrence, bruised and bleeding.

In one image, he was alive. In the next, lifeless — hanging upside down from the same tree where he would be found three years later.

Under the photo, Royce had scrawled a single line:

“Tourist. June 27. Hung as an example to the Mexicans.”

The evidence linked Royce to at least seven murders between 2008 and 2012. Every victim was a lone male hiker between the ages of 20 and 35.

But Royce had disappeared.

The Manhunt

For nearly two years, Royce was a ghost. Then, in early 2014, the FBI got a break.

An informant in Northern California claimed that a man with a scarred face, calling himself Mark Johnson, was working as a guard on an illegal marijuana plantation in the remote forests of Humboldt County.

The informant had no doubt — it was Michael Royce.

On February 5th, 2014, the FBI launched Operation Lumberjack — a dawn raid on the isolated farm. Royce was asleep in his trailer when agents stormed in. He reached for a pistol, but they were faster.

Inside his trailer, they found fake IDs, another digital camera, and a blood-stained sledgehammer. The photos and a handwritten diary confirmed everything.

In his own words, Royce described how he lured Eric Lawrence off the trail by posing as a ranger, claiming that “tree cutting was underway.” When Eric followed, Royce struck him from behind with a sledgehammer.

He kept Eric alive for three days — “to show the Mexicans what happens when people talk.”

On the fourth day, he killed him and hung the body from a tree “as a lesson in obedience.”

Royce’s diary detailed seven killings in total. “Each one was necessary,” he wrote. “Each one kept order.”

The Trial

The trial of Michael Royce began in October 2014 in federal court in Portland. He faced seven counts of first-degree murder, plus charges of kidnapping and weapons violations.

The defense argued insanity — claiming Royce suffered from PTSD from his military service. But his diary and photographs revealed a man who planned every killing with precision.

Former workers testified against him. Mendes described the fear. Gonzalez recalled the screams. Vasquez broke down as he recounted seeing Eric tied inside the metal container.

Linda Lawrence, Eric’s mother, took the stand. Her voice trembled as she spoke:

“He went to the mountains to find peace. Instead, he met a monster. For three years, I prayed he was alive. Now I know what those prayers meant.”

The prosecution presented photographs from Royce’s collection — too graphic for the jury to see all, but enough to understand the horror.

It took the jury two days to reach a verdict: guilty on all counts.

Judgment Day

On December 15th, 2014, Judge Margaret Henderson sentenced Royce to seven consecutive life sentences without parole.

In her final statement, she said:

“You turned fear into a weapon. You used human lives to enforce control. These were not crimes of madness — they were acts of evil.”

Royce showed no emotion. He refused to speak. He was transferred to a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado, where he remains in solitary confinement.

The appeal was denied.

Aftermath: The Ghosts of Mount Hood

The case of Eric Lawrence sent shockwaves through Oregon. It forced the state to tighten regulations on logging and monitor illegal operations more closely.

Linda Lawrence founded The Eric Lawrence Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that helps families of missing persons and funds search and rescue missions.

Each June, she visits Mount Hood — not as a mother searching anymore, but as a keeper of memory.

The forest that once took her son’s life now echoes with hikers’ laughter again. But beneath the canopy, the air still feels heavier than it should — as if it remembers.

The chains were removed. The tree still stands.
And for those who venture into the woods alone, Eric’s story remains a warning whispered by the wind.

Epilogue

Investigators believe there are more victims — five faces in Royce’s photos remain unidentified. The forests of Oregon, Washington, and Northern California still hold their secrets.

For Linda Lawrence, justice brought closure — but never peace.

“They say the mountains are quiet,” she once said. “But when I stand there, I hear him. I hear my son in the wind — asking me not to let people forget what happened.”

And no one who knows this story ever will.