The group leader confirmed the complete elimination of the threat.

However, the truly gruesome discovery was not waiting for them in the maniac’s arsenal.

During the inspection of the shooting site, one of the officers noticed that under the bloody tarp on which Vens lay, the floor had abnormal joints.

Upon removing the thick cloth, the police discovered a perfectly camouflaged steel trapdoor.

Thick electrical cables emerged from it, leading to a hidden hydraulic elevator .

After finding a switch on the wall under a protective plate, the sapper carefully activated it.

With a metallic screech that sent a shiver down the spine, the heavy, multi- ton lid slowly slid aside, revealing the black mouth of a vertical shaft.

From there emanated an glacial cold, a smell of damp cement, and something else.

A barely perceptible and dreadful smell of ancient decay.

The beams of powerful tactical flashlights illuminated in the absolute darkness a steep and endless staircase that led somewhere in the bowels of the earth.

The police were at the very gates of hell, where the missing tourists had spent years of indescribable pain.

But none of the officers who stared into that unfathomable darkness could imagine, not even in their worst nightmares, the terrible evidence of human degradation that awaited them at the bottom of that concrete pit.

The descent of the research team into the well at the Sunset Valley States complex began on August 18, 2014 at 7:15 a.

m.

Descending in an old hydraulic elevator to a depth of 60 feet below the desert surface, the FBI agents plunged into another world.

The air temperature here had dropped to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The walls of the narrow concrete pit were covered in black mud.

The agents advanced in silence, broken only by the breathing of the ventilators and the muffled echo of their footsteps.

When the specialists opened the heavy steel door of the main cell, a picture emerged that fully confirmed the testimony of the surviving prisoner.

The room was a 20 by 30 foot wet concrete sack.

Beneath the roof, protected by a thick grate, a yellow lamp burned dimly .

Heavy industrial tools, mauls, picks, and chisels lay on the ground.

The wooden handles of the tools were soaked with blood and sweat, evidence of thousands of hours of forced labor.

In the corners of the chamber lay remnants of metal chains.

On the upper floor of the hangar, where the hijacker’s observation post was located, investigators found recording equipment and stacks of notebooks.

They were Arthur Vans’ diaries.

The entries were made with manic meticulousness.

For more than 1000 days, with cold objectivity, he had recorded every stage of the psychic destruction of his victims.

Vans described their exhaustion, the exact time when the meager rations were delivered, and documented with satisfaction how, day after day, the family ties between the sisters broke down, giving way to primitive instincts.

The most difficult task for the group was the search for the remains of the older sister.

Guided by a sketched plan, the team ventured into the narrowest tunnel of the old copper mine.

After advancing 150 feet into the interior of the mountain, the beams of the flashlights revealed in the darkness a mound of broken stones.

The excavations lasted about 4 hours.

At a depth of three feet, forensic experts discovered a shallow grave.

Inside lay the skeleton bones of 28-year-old Evely Gibson.

The skull was missing .

The maniac forced the younger sister to take him away.

In the occipital part of the cervical vertebrae, experts recorded signs of severe trauma that matched the description of the fatal blow against the sharp edge of a metal wagon.

During the following months, the case of the abandoned mine continued to appear on the front pages of national newspapers.

The journalists dubbed the bunker the hellish mine.

Public opinion was shocked by the details of the long captivity.

In December 2014, the police leadership held a press conference in which they officially announced the closure of the investigation due to the confirmed death of the suspect.

The press spread the story of a miraculous rescue, calling the younger sister a true heroine, a woman of unwavering will.

For millions of people, he became a symbol of human strength.

No journalist or citizen even suspected the darkness that lay hidden behind that heroic facade.

The real truth, unedited for the public, remained forever secret behind the doors of the FBI offices.

Only a small circle of people—the doctor who treated her, a special agent, and several criminologists—knew how Evely’s life had ended.

For humanitarian reasons and taking into account the confirmed state of dementia caused by torture, the prosecution decided not to file charges.

The terse lines of the official reports forever concealed the fact of the deadly fight between two relatives over a single piece of dried meat.

For the surviving woman, the physical captivity ended the moment her severed legs first touched the cold asphalt of nighttime Highway 64 in three years.

But true freedom never came to her tormented mind.

His soul remained there forever, eternally chained to the concrete walls of the underground prison.

A very long and painful life awaited her , alone with the awareness of a terrible secret, the secret of the triumph of animal instinct for which she had paid with the life of her sister.

And the Grand Canyon, silent witness to thousands of human tragedies, continued to keep silent, hiding the traces of human madness under the thick red rock.

Okay.

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