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In March of 2014, four friends from Dallas, Texas set out on a weekend camping trip to the Casache National Forest in central Louisiana.

They were experienced outdoorsmen who had made similar trips together for years.

And none of them expected that this journey would be any different from the dozens they had taken before.

The group consisted of Colin Hayes, a 29-year-old construction supervisor, his childhood friend Derek Pullman, 31, who worked as an equipment operator for the same company, Justin Lamb, 27, a freelance photographer who documented their trips, and Andrew Finch, 33, a mechanic who owned a small auto repair shop in the suburbs of Dallas.

According to their families, the four men had been planning this trip for months and were excited to explore a section of the forest they had never visited before.

They left Dallas early on the morning of March 14th, driving in two vehicles, a silver Chevrolet Tahoe registered to Colin Hayes and a dark blue Dodge Ram pickup truck owned by Andrew Finch.

The plan, as described in text messages recovered later from their phones, was to camp near the Saline Bayou area, fish in the nearby streams, and hike through the less traveled sections of the forest.

They told their families they would return by Monday evening, March 17th, giving them three full days in the wilderness.

None of them made it back.

The alarm was raised on the evening of March 18th, when Colin Hayes failed to show up for work.

His supervisor at the construction company called his cell phone repeatedly throughout the morning, but received no answer.

By midday, concerned colleagues contacted his wife, Amanda Hayes, who confirmed that Colin had not returned from the camping trip and had not called or sent any messages since Saturday afternoon.

She immediately tried calling the other members of the group, but none of their phones were reachable.

All four numbers went directly to voicemail.

Amanda Hayes contacted the families of the other men and discovered that none of them had heard from their loved ones either.

Derek Pullman’s girlfriend had expected him home Sunday night and had already filed an informal inquiry with the local police.

Justin Lamb’s mother, who lived alone and spoke to her son almost every day, had been trying to reach him since Monday morning with no success.

Andrew Finch’s brother, who managed the auto repair shop in his absence, reported that Andrew had missed two scheduled appointments that morning, which was completely out of character.

By late afternoon on March 18th, the families gathered at the Hayes residence and collectively decided to report the men missing to the Dallas Police Department.

Because the men were last known to be traveling to Louisiana, the Dallas authorities immediately contacted the Nacates Parish Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction over the area of Casachi National Forest where the men had planned to camp.

An official missing person’s report was filed that evening and a coordinated search effort was scheduled to begin at First Light the following day.

The search operation commenced on the morning of March 19th.

A team of sheriff’s deputies, forest rangers, and volunteer search crews assembled at the Saline Bayou entrance point, which was identified as the most likely location based on the text messages sent by the men before their phones stopped transmitting.

According to the cellular service provider records obtained by investigators, the last known location data from all four phones placed them within a 3m radius of the Saline Bayou Recreational Area.

The final message sent by any member of the group was a text from Justin Lamb to his mother at 3:47 in the afternoon on March 15th.

The message read, “Great spot.

Lots of trails will call tomorrow.

” After that timestamp, there was no further communication from any of the four men.

Search teams combed the area around Saline Bayou for the next 5 days.

They located the two vehicles parked side by side on a gravel access road approximately half a mile from the main campground.

Both vehicles were locked, showed no signs of forced entry or struggle, and appeared to be in normal condition.

Inside the Tahoe, investigators found a cooler with melted ice and spoiled food, two sleeping bags still rolled and secured with straps, and a portable camping stove.

The Dodge Ram contained fishing rods, tackle boxes, a tent that had not been unpacked, and several backpacks with clothing and personal items.

Notably, the keys to both vehicles were missing.

The discovery of the vehicles confirmed that the men had arrived at their intended destination, but it raised more questions than it answered.

If they had parked the cars and gone into the forest on foot, why had they not set up camp nearby as they usually did? Why were the tents still packed? And most troubling, where were they now? Search dogs were brought in on the third day of the operation.

The animals picked up human scent trails leading away from the vehicles and into the dense forest, but the trails were inconsistent and faded quickly, likely due to rain that had fallen in the area over the previous weekend.

According to the weather station in Nacadesh, there had been moderate to heavy rainfall on the night of March 15th and into the early morning hours of March 16th, which would have washed away tracks, sent markers, and any other physical evidence that might have indicated the direction the men had traveled.

Helicopters equipped with thermal imaging cameras flew over the forest canopy, scanning for heat signatures that might indicate people on the ground.

The searches turned up nothing.

Ground crews explored every marked trail within a 5mi radius and checked abandoned hunting cabins, old logging roads, and natural clearings where someone might take shelter.

They found no trace of the missing men.

No clothing, no equipment, no signs of campfires or temporary shelters.

It was as if the four friends had simply walked into the forest and vanished.

On March 24th, after 6 days of intensive searching with no results, the official operation was scaled back.

The sheriff’s office issued a public statement acknowledging that while the search would continue on a limited basis, the likelihood of finding the men alive was diminishing with each passing day.

The families refused to accept this.

They organized their own search parties, printing flyers with photographs of all four men and distributing them throughout Nacadesh Parish and surrounding counties.

Volunteers from Dallas drove to Louisiana to help comb the forest.

Local news stations ran stories about the disappearance, urging anyone with information to contact authorities.

But despite the widespread attention and the efforts of dozens of people, no new leads emerged.

The case remained open.

But as weeks turned into months, public interest faded and the families were left with only questions and grief.

Theories circulated among investigators and the families.

Some believed the men had gotten lost in the forest and succumbed to the elements, though this seemed unlikely given their experience and the fact that the weather, aside from the rain, had been mild.

Others suspected foul play, perhaps an encounter with someone in the forest who meant them harm.

But there was no evidence to support this theory.

A few considered the possibility of a wildlife attack, though rangers pointed out that while black bears and alligators inhabit the region, fatal attacks on groups of adult men are extraordinarily rare.

The most frustrating aspect of the case was the complete absence of physical evidence.

In most missing persons cases involving wilderness areas, searchers eventually find something.

A piece of clothing snagged on a branch, a dropped flashlight, a shoe, footprints in mud.

In this case, there was nothing.

It was as though the four men had been erased.

The investigation continued in a limited capacity throughout 2014 and into 2015.

Detectives periodically reviewed the case files, reinterviewed witnesses, and followed up on tips that occasionally came in from people claiming to have seen the men or their vehicles.

None of these leads produced any credible information.

By early 2016, the case had gone cold.

The families held memorial services, though without bodies, they could not find true closure.

The disappearance of Colin Hayes, Derek Pullman, Justin Lamb, and Andrew Finch became one of those unsolved mysteries that haunt a community.

A story told in hush tones, a reminder of how quickly the familiar can become strange and how easily people can be lost.

Then, in April of 2018, something changed.

A discovery was made in the soil of Casachi National Forest.

A discovery so unexpected and so disturbing that it forced investigators to reopen the case and confront the possibility that what happened to those four men was far worse than anyone had imagined.

The discovery that brought the case back to life happened almost by accident during a routine operation that had nothing to do with the missing men.

On April 12th, 2018, a crew from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was conducting a habitat restoration project along a degraded section of wetland approximately 7 mi northeast of the Saline Bayou area where the four men had last been seen.

The project involved clearing invasive plant species and rebuilding eroded banks along a shallow tributary that fed into the larger waterway system.

The work required heavy machinery, including a backho used to remove thick root systems and dig drainage channels to redirect water flow.

It was during one of these excavation efforts that the backho operator, a contractor named Gerald Witmore, struck something solid beneath the soil.

According to his official statement given to investigators later that same day, he initially thought the machine had hit a large rock or a piece of old construction debris, which was not uncommon in areas that had once been used for logging operations.

He climbed
down from the cab to inspect the obstruction and clear it manually if possible.

When he knelt down and brushed away the loose dirt from the edge of the trench, he saw something that made him stop immediately.

partially exposed in the dark, wet soil, was a curved white object with a smooth surface.

It took him only a moment to realize what he was looking at.

It was a human skull.

Whitmore stepped back from the trench and immediately radioed his site supervisor, who in turn contacted the Nacadesh Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Within an hour, deputies arrived at the location along with a forensic team from the Louisiana State Police.

The area was cordoned off and the excavation work was halted.

A forensic anthropologist was called in to oversee the careful removal of the remains.

What they found was both significant and deeply troubling.

The skull was buried approximately 18 in below the surface, nestled in a layer of compact clay and organic matter that had preserved it reasonably well despite the passage of time.

The bone was stained dark brown from prolonged contact with the soil and was covered in a thin layer of dirt and root fibers.

But the most striking feature, the detail that immediately set this discovery apart from a typical forensic recovery, was the presence of a rusted metal object protruding from the back of the skull.

It was an arrow.

The arrow had entered through the rear of the skull at a downward angle, penetrated the bone completely, and emerged through the front just above the right eye socket.

The shaft had long since rotted away, but the arrow head itself, a triangular broadhead style made of iron or steel, remained embedded in the bone.

Rust had eaten away much of the metal surface, but the shape and structure were still clearly recognizable.

This was not a modern hunting arrow.

The design and the level of corrosion suggested that the weapon was old, possibly decades old, though determining the exact age would require further analysis.

The forensic team worked methodically over the next several hours, carefully excavating the surrounding soil in a grid pattern to ensure that no other remains or evidence were missed.

They sifted through each layer of dirt, checking for bone fragments, personal items, or anything else that might provide context for the burial.

Despite their thorough efforts, no additional human remains were found in the immediate area.

There were no other bones, no clothing, no identification, nothing that could immediately tell them who this person was or how long they had been buried there.

The skull was transported to the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory in Baton Rouge for examination.

A forensic pathologist conducted a preliminary analysis and confirmed that the skull belonged to an adult male, likely between the ages of 25 and 40, based on the structure of the bone and the degree of dental wear.

The teeth were intact, which meant that dental records could potentially be used for identification if a match could be found.

The arrow wound was examined in detail under laboratory conditions.

The pathologist noted that the point of entry at the back of the skull showed characteristics consistent with a penetrating trauma inflicted while the victim was alive.

There were micro fractures radiating outward from the entry point, a pattern that occurs when bone is struck with force while still living tissue surrounds it.

This meant that the arrow had not been placed in the skull after death.

It had killed the person.

The trajectory of the arrow entering from behind and traveling at a downward angle suggested that the victim had been struck from an elevated position or while in a crouched or kneeling posture.

The force required to drive an arrow head completely through a human skull is considerable, indicating either a powerful bow or a close-range shot.

In either case, the injury would have been immediately fatal or caused death within minutes.

The question of identity became the next focus of the investigation.

The Nacatesh Parish Sheriff’s Office began cross-referencing the discovery with all open missing persons cases in the region from the past 20 years.

Given the location of the burial site and the time frame suggested by the condition of the remains, investigators quickly turned their attention to the 2014 disappearance of Colin Hayes, Derek Pullman, Justin Lamb, and Andrew Finch.

The proximity of the
burial site to the area where the men had last been seen, combined with the fact that their case had never been resolved, made it a logical starting point.

Dental records were requested from the families of all four men.

The process of obtaining these records took several days as some of the men had not visited a dentist in years, and their families had to track down old files from clinics that had since closed or changed ownership.

By April 18th, the laboratory had received dental records for three of the four men.

Colin Hayes had comprehensive dental records from a clinic in Dallas that included X-rays taken less than a year before his disappearance.

Derek Pullman’s records were older, but still usable.

Andrew Finch had undergone significant dental work in his 20s, and his records were detailed and well preserved.

Justin Lamb’s records were incomplete.

He had not been to a dentist in over 5 years and the only records available were from a childhood orthodontist and were deemed insufficient for a definitive comparison.

The forensic odontologist compared the skulls dental structure with the records provided.

The process involved matching the size, shape, and position of the teeth as well as any unique features such as fillings, chips, or abnormalities.

After a thorough comparison, the odontologist reached a conclusion.

The skull did not match Colin Hayes.

It did not match Derek Pullman, but it was a definitive match for Andrew Finch.

The identification was confirmed through a secondary analysis, and the results were reported to the sheriff’s office on April 20th, 2018.

Andrew Finch, the 33-year-old mechanic who had vanished along with his three friends more than 4 years earlier, had been found, or at least part of him had.

The confirmation of identity brought a flood of emotions for the Finch family.

Andrew’s brother, who had spent years searching for answers, was notified by investigators in a private meeting.

He later described the moment as a mixture of relief and horror.

Relief because after so long, they finally knew something concrete.

Horror because the manner of death raised questions that were even more disturbing than the uncertainty they had lived with.

If Andrew had been killed with an arrow and buried in the forest, what had happened to the other three men? And who was responsible? The discovery of the skull triggered an immediate escalation of the investigation.

The Nacatesh Parish Sheriff’s Office with assistance from the Louisiana State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reopen the case as a homicide.

A new search operation was organized, this time focused on the area surrounding the burial site.

Cadaavver dogs were brought in to sweep the wetlands and forested zones within a 2-m radius.

Ground penetrating radar was used to scan sections of the forest floor for additional burial sites.

Divers were sent into the deeper sections of the bayou and surrounding waterways to search for submerged remains.

The operation lasted for 2 weeks and involved more than 50 personnel.

Investigators combed through dense underbrush, waited through swamps, and explored abandoned structures scattered throughout the forest.

They found debris, animal bones, old camping equipment left behind by years of visitors, but no further human remains, no additional skulls, no bones belonging to Colin Hayes, Derek Pullman, or Justin Lamb.

It was as if Andrew Finch had been separated from the group and buried alone, while the others had simply disappeared into nothing.

The investigation shifted to understanding the significance of the arrow.

Forensic analysis determined that the arrow head was consistent with designs used in traditional archery and hunting common in the southern United States from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

The metal composition suggested it was not a commercially mass-roduced modern broadhead, but rather a style that might have been handmade or purchased from specialty retailers catering to traditional bow hunters.

This was an important clue.

It indicated that whoever had killed Andrew Finch was likely someone with experience in archery, possibly someone who preferred older or unconventional hunting methods.

Investigators began compiling a list of individuals in the region known to use traditional bows for hunting.

This was a difficult task because such activities are not typically registered or tracked unless they result in violations of hunting regulations.

However, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries maintained records of hunting licenses, violations, and complaints, and these files were reviewed for anyone with a history involving archery or unusual hunting practices.

Several names emerged from the records, but one in particular caught the attention of investigators.

His name was Raymond Ducet, a 52-year-old resident of a small unincorporated community called Bellwood, located roughly 12 mi west of the area where Andrew Finch’s skull had been found.

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