The Grand Canyon or the Grand Canyon is an amazing place that no longer exists on the entire Earth. No photographs can convey all its greatness, beauty and mystery. This deepest gorge on the planet has amazed people for many centuries. But since the Grand Canyon was declared a national park in 1919, at least 700 people have died on its territory for quite different and not always clear reasons. In this list, you will learn not only about terrible crimes, but also about incredible accidents, tragedies and mysteries that can change your opinion that the natural beauty of state reserves is an absolutely safe environment for humans.
10. Cursed relics
In 1879, during an expedition to Arizona, when trader Don Maguire was crossing the Colorado River, he met Emma Lee. In exchange for some of Maguire's goods that Lee needed, she gave him a beautiful Native American veil, but warned the businessman that the thing had a dark past. According to the woman, the cursed blanket brought her late husband nothing but trouble. Maguire was not a superstitious man and left the canyon the next day, taking with him an Indian relic. Over the next 2 years, the merchant kept a personal diary, in which he wrote down how he suffered because of the "hundreds of disasters" that stopped immediately after the loss of that same ill-fated veil.
In the Grand Canyon area, stories like these about damn things that once belonged to Native Americans are very common. In addition, the national park rangers constantly receive letters from tourists wishing to return artifacts that they stole from places considered holy to the Indians. Pottery shards are one of the most common finds in Native American burial sites and are almost always returned, and efforts are made to do so as soon as possible. Foresters argue that the main reason is always the same reason - the thieves "experienced extreme setbacks and fell ill with serious diseases ever since they picked up and stolen ancient artifacts."
9. Scared to death
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The Grand Canyon is home to many very dangerous animals, scurrying freely across the expanses of the national park. Mountain lions, brown bears, and moose are just a few of the wild beasts that inhabit these lands, capable of attacking humans without the slightest warning.
Spermophilus variegates, or rocky ground squirrel, is a rodent known for its highly venomous bite and indiscriminate attacks on everyone. Surprisingly, not formidable giants with huge claws, but it is this tiny animal that is considered the most insidious animal in the park.
In 1933, an incredible incident occurred in the canyon, also associated with local animals. Cochrane, a 43-year-old gold digger from California, was walking down a trail in the Snake Gulch area when a rattlesnake came in his way. Cochrane, who was terribly afraid of snakes, immediately got a heart attack from fear and died on the spot. Ironically, to this day, no deaths from a rattlesnake bite have been reported in the Grand Canyon.
8. Squad on unsolved cases
Finding human remains in the Grand Canyon has become a fairly common occurrence over the past hundred years. Such gruesome discoveries are understandable given how many unsolved cases are stored in the Coconino County Sheriff's database. Attempts to identify the discovered remains and solve cases of mysterious disappearances and tragic deaths have led to the creation of a special investigative team dealing with just such cold or unsolved cases associated with the legendary reserve.
One of the cases the squad is currently investigating is the 1975 murder in the North Rim observation deck. All that was found at the scene of the crime was a bloody T-shirt with 36 slits made, apparently with a knife, during the blows to the victim's body. County police did not share all the details of the case, but the item was believed to belong to a woman who was killed by members of the Outlaws biker gang.
Official statistics of the Grand Canyon on the remains found on its territory remain unknown, as well as the names of the victims. The causes of their deaths were accidents, suicides, sudden killings and even torture. Although some unidentified victims were still given code names to somehow distinguish between these investigations. For example, there are cases involving "Little Miss X" and "Valentine Sally" (Little Miss X, Valentine Sally). Today, the Unsolved Cases squad continues to work and piece together the puzzle of some of the most intricate and hopeless crimes that occurred in the Grand Canyon region decades ago. The police strive to answer the questions of grieving loved ones and find those responsible for the deaths of victims who cry for justice from the afterlife.
7. Favorite place of suicides
The Grand Canyon is often the site of some of the strangest and most ridiculous suicides in American history. The case of 36-year-old Patricia Astolfo is a good example. After 50 views of Thelma and Louisemore, an American road movie, Patricia got behind the wheel and tried to fly her car off the edge of a steep cliff. The car's suspension caught on a rocky ledge, and this ruined the impressionable lady's original plans. The stubborn American woman got out of the car and jumped down, but again failed, falling only 6 meters, and landing on a huge boulder protruding from the rock. Bloody and bruised, Patricia Astolfo crawled to the edge of the ledge, rolled over it and "finally" crashed to her death.
Cases of suicides flying off cliffs in their cars have become very common in this nature reserve. A similar incident occurred in 2009, when 57-year-old Gheorge Chiriac checked out of the El Tovar Hotel, got into the car and drove it into the chasm under the South Rim observation deck.
Probably the strangest suicide happened here in 2004, when a young guy in his 20s jumped straight out of a helicopter on a guided tour. The rest of the excursion participants were shocked and later said that the young man behaved quietly and quite normally until he threw himself into the deepest part of the canyon, falling from a 1200-meter height.
6. El Tovar Hotel
The El Tovar Hotel is just 6 meters from the South Rim Rock Viewpoint and was the epitome of luxury when it first opened in 1905. Since then, there have been constant complaints of ghosts here, and terrified guests regularly leave the hotel with promises to never return to this eerie haunted place.
Just a step from the main entrance to the complex is the hotel's most mysterious inscription - a flat and almost imperceptible tombstone with the epitaph “Pirl A. Ward: 1879–1934”. Over the past century, countless hotel visitors and employees have claimed to have seen a black cloaked figure pacing next to stairs or a grave and disappearing into the woods. Another mystical story is about an elderly gentleman in a good suit, who appears on the third floor of the El Tovar Hotel. Over the years, hotel guests have reported that this ghost invites them to attend the annual celebration meeting.
From the ghostly silhouettes that appear on the rocky paths of the canyon, to the ghosts of hotel workers continuing their service at night, mysterious events not only repel the most fearful tourists, but also attract paranormal hunters who dream of seeing something supernatural with just one eye.
5. Glen and Bessie Hyde
At all times there have been people thirsting for adventure, and the newlyweds Glen and Bessie were among them. In the winter of 1928, they decided to raft down the Grand Canyon River. After a month of Haid's voyage, their makeshift wooden boat was found upside down and filled with cold water. A few days earlier, the couple had been spotted in the area of Southern Rome, where the couple resupplied their supplies. At the same time, as witnesses recalled, 22-year-old Bessie exclaimed: "I wonder if I will ever wear my beautiful shoes."
As word of the disappearance of the lovers spread, newspapers across the country began to report on newlyweds who were about to set a world record but went missing. It all began with the largest search in the history of the Grand Canyon, and ended with the still unresolved mystery of the disappearance of young travelers. There are many assumptions, including the version about the attack of the Indians and the more likely theory that the guys simply drowned in ice water. One way or another, the fate of the Hydes is still unknown.
4. Robert Spangler
In 1978, Robert Spangler shot and killed his own wife, Nancy, and two of his kids right at their country house in Denver. Then the killer tried to make it look like Nancy had killed the children and that she then committed suicide. The test for traces of gunpowder on Robert's hands turned out to be positive, but investigators were unable to build a full-fledged case against the widower, although they suspected him from the very beginning. For another 15 years, the man walked free until he became involved in the tragic event again. In 1993, while vacationing in the Grand Canyon, Robert pushed his third wife Donna off the edge of a cliff. The unfortunate woman flew 60 meters and crashed to her death.
The detectives again failed to prove Robert's guilt. They were never able to refute the version that Donna slipped and accidentally fell from a height, but suspicions of her husband's involvement in the incident grew. Fortunately, in 2000 the man was diagnosed with terminal cancer, which gave the police hope that the killer would agree to admit his guilt before dying. The lead investigator in the case was Paul Goodman, and his instincts did not deceive him - the dying Robert Spangler confessed to all 4 murders. The villain just wanted the FBI profilers to explain to him "why he was so good at killing." The "exemplary" husband and father was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2001, and after 5 months he died of cancer.
3. John Wesley Powell
In 1869, John Wesley Powell, in company with other like-minded people, set off on his first rafting down the Colorado River, choosing for an expedition a little-known section of the Great Canyon with a very strong current. Almost at the very end of the rafting, the group encountered very dangerous rapids, which were almost impossible to overcome. Convinced of the suicidal plan of Powell's plan to continue rafting, the three men left the one-armed Civil War veteran and set off to seek safety on the rocks of the canyon. Despite the danger, Powell and the rest of the event continued on their way along the rushing streams of the turbulent river. Two days later, the group miraculously reached the mouth of the Virgin River, where they were greeted by settlers on the bank. Ironically, the three rebels who left the expedition earlier out of fear for their lives were eventually killed. Somewhere along the way from the canyon, these men fell into the hands of the native Indians, who killed the pale-faced in retaliation for attacking a woman from their tribe.
2. Aircraft collision
One of the deadliest plane crashes in American history happened on the morning of June 30, 1956. About an hour after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport, United Airlines flights 718 and TWA 2 collided in the air over the Grand Canyon. Search and rescue teams found the wreckage the next day, and the Civil Aviation Council began an immediate investigation into the incident. As it turned out, the pilots of both flights lost their assigned routes, and their planes flew simultaneously at the same altitude. Due to the increased cloudiness, the pilots saw each other too late, and it was already impossible to avoid a collision at that time.
All 128 passengers died … A full and detailed report on the accident appeared only a year later. According to experts, the tragedy was caused by a lack of communication, turbulent weather and outdated rules for visual flights. These days, the site where the wreckage of these aircraft still lies has become a popular tourist attraction. On clear days, parts of the hulls of crashed airliners still sparkle in the sun, recalling the terrible tragedy that took place in the Grand Canyon many years ago.
1. Mysterious murders of tourists
Among all the most tragic accidents of the Grand Canyon, including suicides, attacks by wild animals, falls from viewing platforms, lightning strikes, and so on, perhaps the most gruesome are the murders of innocent tourists.
In January 1977, the bodies of Michael and Charlotte Sherman were discovered in the national reserve. Apparently they were shot. Who and why is a mystery …
Another tragedy happened already in 2006. Vacationers found the body of 34-year-old Japanese tourist Tomomi Hanamure in the water near the waterfall. The forensic examination showed that the unfortunate woman was stabbed as many as 29 times, which reminded investigators of the murder of 30-year-old Kim Quanimptewa, who was stabbed to death in the southern Rome area several years before Tomomi's murder. Tragic events often occur in national reserves, but the Grand Canyon is one of the most notorious places where there have been too many unsolved murders.
