I don’t think he had any clue.

I don’t think he had any clue that we were going to him.

Police spent 12 days looking through Herman’s home, pulling those guns out of the basement and digging in the backyard.

They say it will take some time to comb through what they have now.

And they were tight lipped about what they found.

Has the search been fruitful? Great question.

And the answer is yes.

Can you elaborate on fruitful? You said yes, it’s fruitful.

There have been items that we have taken into our possession.

That makes it fruitful.

And one more big piece of evidence taken into possession.

A first generation Chevy Avalanche Herman once used and it was sitting on property he owns in South Carolina when they recovered it.

We were able to seize that Chevy Avalanche pursuant to a search warrant and we’re certainly going to analyze that.

But there were female hairs found on some of the victim’s bodies that don’t belong to the victims.

So who do they belong to? After Rex Herman’s arrest, his quiet neighborhood in Masipeka Park was overrun by investigators and media, focusing intense scrutiny on the ramshackle home and its remaining residents, his stepson Christopher Sheridan, daughter Victoria Herman, and his wife of more than 25 years, Assa.

Ellerup.

Their life going forward is always going to be the wife or the children of suspected serial killer.

That’s what it’s going to be from now on.

Attorney Bob Macedonio represents Assa Erup who has since filed for divorce from Hurman.

He says she was as stunned as anyone by the accusations.

She had no idea any of this was going on.

The allegations are shocking.

Nobody wants to think that they’ve been living with sleeping next to a serial killer for the past 25 years.

As it turns out, Assa may have inadvertently helped focus the investigation on her husband.

Investigators say they’ve identified strands of female hair that were found on two of the victims.

One hair on Waterman comes back to his wife or the DNA profiles are consistent and then the DNA profile from Costello is consistent with the wife.

Although prosecutors have evidence that Osa was out of town when those murders occurred, they will have to explain how those hairs got on the victims.

Suffach County DA Ray Tierney says it could be as simple as transfer.

You live at home with a spouse.

A little bit of your hair falls on your shoulder as well as as your spouse’s.

Then you go out and you interact with a third party and that hair gets on them.

Assa Erup has not been charged or named a suspect in any of the murders.

You don’t believe that Rex Humeman’s wife was involved in this in any way? There’s no evidence to indicate that? No.

Along with the public scrutiny of Assa, there’s also been support from people that perhaps know all too well what she’s going through.

Carrie Rosson, the daughter of serial killer Dennis Rder, who named himself BTK, tweeted, “Asa and her kids are also victims.

I can tell that they are going through hell.

” And from Melissa Moore, the daughter of Keith Jesperson, a serial killer known as the Happy Face Killer, for taunting authorities with letters signed with a happy face.

She reached out immediately to myself and we put her in contact with Assa.

At a press conference, Macedonia announced more set up a GoFundMe page for Assa, which raised over $50,000.

Money he says will largely go to medical bills.

Assa is battling breast and skin cancer.

And because Rex Huerman was a sole provider for the family, Macedonio says she will soon lose her health insurance.

Assa would like me to express her thanks for the support she’s received.

Um, she’s going through a very difficult time.

Assa’s children have also paid a heavy price.

Her daughter Victoria, who worked for her father at the architectural consulting firm, and her son Christopher are both now unemployed.

Assa struggles to support them, says Macedonio, while she’s also trying to figure out how to start over.

How is she getting through every day? Honestly, yeah.

Minute by minute, she has no one else to turn to.

At this time, family and friends have been hesitant to have her come over because they don’t want the media attention.

She gets followed wherever she goes.

For the moment, she and her children continue to live in the house in Masipiqua Park, which the family says was excessively damaged during the police search seen in these photos provided by Osa’s attorney.

It’s a daily reminder of the unimaginable crimes her estranged husband is charged with and the investigation that continues into what else he may have done.

Rex Huerman awaiting trial is locked inside a Suffach County jail in a 60s square foot cell.

He denies killing Melissa Bartholomew, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.

Their voices now silent as the sand where they have been ruthlessly discarded.

How sure are you as you’re sitting here now that Rexerman is the Long Island serial killer? So, we’re just at the beginning stages of this case, but we would not have brought this indictment if we weren’t confident in our case.

He took away somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, and not just one person, multiple individuals.

Huerman is currently the prime suspect for the murder of Moren Brainer Barnes.

And for investigators, an obvious question still hangs heavy.

If Huerman is a killer, are there other victims? I mean, isn’t there a real concern that there may be other victims out there? Always.

Who’s to say that there’s not more bodies out there that we need to investigate? In 2011, police did find other bodies along Ocean Parkway.

After finding the Gilgo 4, there is victim number five, Jessica Taylor, an escort who went missing in 2003.

Another set of remains police called Jane do number six is now identified as Valerie Mack, also working as an escort.

Number seven, to investigators surprise, they found a toddler girl.

Number eight, an Asian male dressed in women’s clothing.

Number nine, a female skull belonging to Karen Vada, an escort who disappeared in 1996.

Number 10, female remains from a victim cops nicknamed Peaches because of a tattoo on her torso.

Although her remains were found six miles away, police say DNA confirms Peaches is the mother of that toddler.

None of those victims has been linked to Huermen.

Is it that you can’t connect him yet or you believe he probably isn’t the person who killed these other other individuals? I don’t know.

Investigations also spread to Las Vegas in South Carolina where Huerman owns property with detectives there taking a fresh look at cases of missing women.

And then there’s Nikki Brass.

I remembered him because one, he’s massive and how many massive like 6’5 architects work in Manhattan, live in Masipa.

You’re going from brown and blonde.

Now a hairdresser, Nikki claims she may be one that got away.

She told us she used to work as an escort.

And while we cannot substantiate her story, Nikki claims she can’t shake her memory of the night she says she was solicited for sex by Rex Herman and says she fled the restaurant where they met.

I had never gone anywhere and like felt fear.

My gut was telling me I needed to get away and I’ve never had that before.

Nikki says what she found most disturbing is that Huerman himself brought up those bodies bound in burlap by Gilgo Beach.

He wanted to like really get into it.

Like he asked me how I thought they could get rid of the bodies without being caught in that area.

And I said, “I’ve never been over there.

I’ve never even seen Gilgo Beach.

” And his response was, “Well, it’s really dark and desolate.

I’m John Ray and I’m the lawyer.

Nikki is now represented by John Ray, an attorney who is also representing Shannon Gilbert’s family.

In December of 2011, investigators finally found Shannon here in the marsh, not far from Gilgo Beach.

But they don’t believe she was murdered.

It’s an unfortunate incident, but right now we believe that she just ran into the marsh and unfortunately drowned.

A former investigator told us that he believes Shannon was high on drugs that night and says her death was an accident, something John Ray just can’t believe.

While he doesn’t think Shannon was a victim of humor, he does believe she was murdered and points to that 911 call.

It absolutely makes no sense that she’s found where she is except that someone else put her there or killed her there.

While questions remain about Shannon’s last hours, there’s no question she’s the reason so many families may finally be getting answers they have long waited for.

We spoke to her sister Sheree in 2011.

If my sister, you know, didn’t make that 911 call, I don’t think that these other women would have been recovered either.

Now, investigators hope that with an arrest, they can give the victim’s families who stood with them a sense of justice and of peace.

I’ve gotten to know the families and I’m inspired by them and I’m impressed by their patience.

A local legend has it that this place, Gilgo Beach, was named for a skilled fisherman called Gil.

These silver gray waters, once his secret hunting ground.

Today, this beach area is better known for a relentless hunter of human prey, a serial killer whose chilling presence can still be felt in the ocean air.

a 35year-old case.

His father was indicted for killing his mother.

Whoever did this hated this woman.

Their entire case is circumstantial.

But can he find the truth? I want to know what happened.

48 hours is all new.

CBS next in streaming on Paramount Plus.

I think Forest wanted to become a legend and I actually think he succeeded.

He was described as a modern-day Indiana Jones.

Forest came up with the idea to hide a bronze chest filled with gold somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

I bought this beautiful little treasure chest and I started filling it up with wonderful things.

There’s 265 gold coins, hundreds and hundreds of gold nuggets.

He wrote a 24line poem guiding people to the location of the treasure.

Yeah, that’s exactly it.

He created effectively a treasure map in the form of that poem.

I’m going to read the poem.

So, here it goes.

As I have gone alone in there and with my treasures bold, I can keep my secret wear and hint of riches new and old.

There’ll be no paddle up your creek, just heavy loads and water high.

So hear me all and listen good.

Your effort will be worth the cold.

If you’ve been brave and in the wood, I give you title to the gold.

And I read that poem and oh god, it was like a hook.

No place for the meek.

The bug got in me and I couldn’t let it go.

I tried to climb up into that cave there.

I couldn’t sleep.

I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard.

How much was that treasure worth? I I think that 1 million is a pretty good mark to use.

I made at least 85 trips.

I didn’t find the treasure yet.

We had so much fun.

It was crazy.

Since there’s a mountain lion in the area, we don’t want to take any chances.

So, we’re bringing our gun.

I have spent over 2,000 hours.

This is where I ran into my rattlesnake.

Searching for forest fence treasure.

Well, I made it hard deliberately.

If it was easy, anyone could do it.

For at least five people, the search for Fen’s treasure was the last thing they ever did.

Yes.

Unfortunately, you know, this treasure hunt did claim at least five lives.

Randy Bill was the first.

Paris Wallace also died in the Rio Grand River.

Eric Ashby died in the Arkansas River.

There was a gentleman who was hiking in Yellowstone and ended up falling off of a cliff.

Two men who went out with snowmobiles.

I’ve got him in sight still.

One of them froze to death and the other one was hospitalized.

Of course, Finn was a bad person.

He could have stopped this madness before it became what it became.

It wasn’t worth it.

How does Forest Fen respond to that? By to some degree digging in his heels.

He didn’t like the idea that anyone would tell him to bring his hunt to an end because of a few deaths.

And he said that if somebody was murdered because of the hunt, that would probably be too much.

High at top a ridge near Dinosaur National Monument, 53-year-old Mike Sexon froze to death.

This is the last known photo of him taken in March 2020 as he hiked in that remote area.

Days later, Mike’s body was airlifted off the mountaintop.

Okay, he’s coming up.

All right, he’s about halfway.

Mike became the fifth person to die while searching for Forest Fen’s hidden treasure.

Mike was full of life.

Mike was an adventurer and always smiling, always laughing, a big deep chuckle.

Friend Liz Keyi struggles to reconcile Mike’s love of adventure with his terrible loss.

I’m glad that he took this adventure.

I am very sad that he’s gone.

I miss Mike every day.

I miss his hugs when I’m stressed.

I miss his support.

I miss his voice, his laughter.

Beth Van Oz today is forced to cope without her longtime boyfriend.

Mike had been her rock after she suffered a brain injury.

He was more than just my partner.

He was in some ways my caretaker.

After Mike’s death, Liz felt compelled to send Forest Fen an anguished email.

How many people have to die before your game is done? I had received an email back and and he just gave his condolences to Beth.

First, Fen was a very complicated person.

Dan Barbaresi explores Fen’s complexities in his new book, Chasing the Thrill, Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt.

He believed in stories that were bigger than just your run-of-the-mill standard tale.

And he dreamed big.

He believed in big things.

And Fen had lived a big life, beginning with his days in the Air Force when he was shot down twice in Vietnam and later as the owner of a well-known southwestern art gallery.

How did a retired fighter pilot reinvent himself in Santa Fe, New Mexico with not just an art gallery, but one of the most famous art galleries in America? I think he would tell you it’s about the show you can put on.

And there’s no question that Fen put on a good show.

His gallery attracted celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onasses, Steve Martin, and Ralph Lauren.

But there were recurring whispers that Fen may have built his impressive collection by plundering ancient Native American PBLO.

There were certainly some questions about how he came in possession of some of those artifacts over time.

In 2009, long after Fen had sold his gallery, his home was raided by federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management.

And it ultimately turned out that Fen was not charged with anything in that case.

The next year, Fen self-published his memoir, The Thrill of the Chase.

To get families into the great outdoors, Fen put a little incentive inside his memoir, that distinctive 24line poem.

He claimed it contained clues that would lead one clever person to the 10 by 10 inch chest of gold he’d hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

If you can follow the clues in the poem to the treasure chest, you’re going to be amazed at what you find.

Then launched a modern-day treasure hunt, but it was slowgoing at first.

It felt like a small little treasure hunt for a few people who knew about it.

When did that change and why? It got noticed by the larger media.

There were a few big pieces.

One in Hemispheres magazine, one in Newsweek.

I think the name of that reporter was the same as my name.

Whatever it was was a very hard name to pronounce, but I’m pretty sure it was Tony.

That much I’ve got.

It’s pronounced Dopal, by the way.

It really started to raise the profile of it in a significant way.

It wasn’t long before tens of thousands of people were on the hunt.

In 2015, months before any of the searchers died, Ben spoke to CBS News about the likelihood of anyone finding his treasure.

It isn’t impossible, but you’re not going to stumble over it.

You have to deliberately go to it.

Fen said the spot he chose was so beautiful he could imagine it as his final resting place.

An original version of the poem actually talked about his bones being there next to the treasure chest itself.

Fen dropped that idea.

The searchers had their own reasons for going on the hunt and it became clear that many were seeking more than a box of gold.

I think a lot of people really wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Maybe there was something missing in their lives and for others it was that they felt that people hadn’t believed in them to the extent that they should have.

Searchers shared their passion and began to compare so-called solves, their interpretation of the clues in the poem.

It was all online until some got the idea to meet in real life.

And so of that was born Fenbury.

Exactly what it sounds like.

It’s a Forest Fen Jamboree.

Each summer, Fen’s fans flocked to Santa Fe where Forest Fen was her star attraction.

The guy described it as as meeting a beetle.

You know, it was that kind of thing.

Everybody just lined up literally to get their their brief moment with Forest Fen.

People use the word eccentric, but I don’t think that’s the right word for him.

He was just his own man.

Sasha Dent was living in Albuquerque when she took up the chase.

I probably searched for Forest Fence Treasure about 300 times.

She became an insider.

Forest was such a a major part of my life.

And Sasha saw firsthand the good that came from Fen’s game.

There was account after account of families who were brought together because of Forest Fence treasure hunt.

There were relationships built on the treasure hunt and marriages and that includes her own marriage.

Brea out.

Another of Fen’s favorites was Katya Luc, a singer songwriter who knew Fan in the9s before he wrote his memoir.

When she later came across Finn’s book, well, gold fever struck that very night.

I couldn’t sleep all night long.

I’m either Google Earth, Googling, reading the book again, underlining, highlighting.

She estimates she spent $75,000 over 7 years of searching.

It was a great time, she says, even during some dangerous moments.

I had a very close encounter while I was searching for the treasure with a cougar and I just froze.

But then I lifted up my hoodie really tall and made myself bigger.

I went marching really strong and did like a pseudo chant really loud.

Hey.

Katya came away unscathed, but others were not so lucky.

This is not some disnified hunt where at the end of it everything turns out okay.

The reality is if you don’t take this thing seriously, it will get you.

Look just to the right of that tree off in the distance.

You see it? That’s where we’re going.

For 5 years, no one could find the location of Ben’s treasure.

But the searchers had become a tight community.

If it’s snow covered, it’s pointless.

I think we were like a support group for each other.

You’re among people who get that it’s not just about the money.

He says it cannot be stumbled upon.

It’s about being the one who cracked the code.

I have looked and I have looked and I have looked and the other people they get it.

I know at least probably 30 places where it’s not.

You would talk about your solve, as they called it, but you never gave the exact location.

I told you we’re not going to be in Yellowstone.

The distances didn’t work out really well for me.

Toby Ununis hosted a popular YouTube show about the hunt.

Everybody believed they were going to find their treasure.

There was no acceptance of the idea that someone else would find the treasure.

And divorced grandfather Randy Bill was convinced he had as good a chance as anyone.

I met Randy a couple times at some of the Fen gatherings.

Randy was always my protector.

Randy grew up on Long Island, New York, and his sister Kathy Leebold remembers he loves sports and animals.

Randy learned of Fen’s treasure in 2013 and started searching the next year.

I think he was excited about the adventure of the hunt and um he thought if he found the treasure that he would use the money to help his family.

And if you knew Randy, you knew Leo, his long-haired Jack Russell.

Leo was his best buddy and he took him everywhere.

Randy and Leo moved to Colorado to be closer to the search area.

And at the beginning, Kathy says he was good about letting his family know when he was going out on the trail, but later that changed.

I think he thought he was getting really really close to it and um he just wanted to, you know, excite us all with the news that he had found it.

On January 5th, 2016, Randy and Leo headed out to the Rio Grand northwest of Santa Fe with a small raft.

Temperatures hovered around freezing.

He was gone for 10 days before he was reported missing.

I had a sinking feeling that something was really very wrong.

Flight nurse Aaron Johnson was part of a medical helicopter crew sent out to look for Randy.

On the initial search, they found nothing and headed back up river.

And that’s actually when we found his raft.

That’s a raft.

It’s uh blue.

They landed on a sandy bank of the river and were in for a surprise.

There was a small dog that was there and barking at us.

He had a sweater on which was pretty dirty, but I’m quite certain that that sweater saved his life.

There were three of us on the ground the whole time.

Aside from the raft and his dog, we could find really nothing else.

No backpack, nothing.

Leo seemed frightened, but Aaron eventually coaxed him to eat a cliff bar the pilot had on board.

And at the point where we had to leave, I had a big thick jacket and I just threw it over him and scooped him up and brought him on the helicopter.

Kathy saw the heartbreaking news on TV.

Only Leo had been rescued.

It was uh probably one of the worst days of my life.

The treasure hunting community got word of this and many of these people wanted to help.

Determined to find Ry’s body, drone pilots shot hours of footage that was posted online so the treasure hunt community could go through it frame by frame looking for signs of Randy.

Other searchers put boots on the ground.

It was rugged.

I mean, it was harder than any treasure searching any of us had done.

It was rough.

We searched very very hard every day for over a month.

Forest Fen rode in a helicopter to look for Randy.

Fen also met with Kathy when she came to Santa Fe.

Fen was sympathetic, but told her he wasn’t willing to call off the treasure hunt.

I think a lot of people could argue that his priorities are perhaps not what they should be.

That instead of the people or the human cost, he cared a lot more potentially about his treasure hunt.

And the treasure hunt was everything to fend.

Even though it put his family at risk.

Forest was harassed over the years.

His family was harassed.

There’s a man who’s done prison for stalking Forest’s granddaughter.

Get on your knees.

Get on your knees.

And this man, Robert Miller, was arrested for burglary in 2018 at Fen’s Santa Fe home.

So, what the hell is going on? I thought the poem directed me into here.

I thought it said poem.

Yeah, the the treasure map, the treasure hunt, you know.

So, you came on the property because of the poem? Are you serious? Yeah.

What did his family think about all this? Uh, I think his family had a hard time with it, honestly.

Even with all of that, Forest saw how much good his treasure hunt did for how many people, and he know that the good far outweighed the bad.

The search for the treasure continued as did the search for Randy.

6 months after he went missing, his body was found on the riverbank.

Obviously, we were devastated that he wasn’t alive.

He was a great father, grandfather, and uncle to my son.

With Randy gone, Leo was adopted by none other than Aaron Johnson.

Leo, the nurse who rescued him.

Good boy.

In the five years with his new family, the ultimate rescue dog has even learned some new tricks.

Okay, turn around.

Kathy is happy he’s found a new home.

Good boy.

But she thinks about her brother every day.

I wished he’d been more careful.

I wished he hadn’t gone out that day, but you know, he was enjoying what he was doing.

Randy was not the last to die searching for Fen’s gold.

The next year, the hunt claimed three more lives.

He had become obsessed by Ven’s treasure, and that was the only thing that mattered to him.

In June 2017, a year and a half after Randy Billu died, three more men lost their lives in a matter of weeks.

Jeff Murphy was searching in Yellowstone National Park, very tragically just misststepped and ended up falling off of a cliff and passing away.

Around the same time, writer Dan Barbaresi went on his first search with his treasure hunting partner Jay Rener.

What was it like going from 4 months of research on a computer to being out there in the wilderness? The first thing that stood out to me, how much bigger a point on a map is in real life.

You know, you look on a map, oh, this isn’t that big.

I can cross this area with just my finger alone.

Once you’re actually out in the wild, you see how big those distances are and how much land there actually is out there pretty quickly.

It really hits you in the face pretty fast.

Reality wasn’t the only thing hitting Dan and Jay in the face.

We’re out there thinking that we’re, you know, adventurers, explorers, and all of a sudden it starts hailing.

And we very quickly realize that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

Days later, in that same exact area, a Colorado pastor named Paris Wallace set off to search the Rio Grand near the Tal Junction Bridge.

As you move through life, there are those points where you have to seek God to find out what he wants you to do.

And he crossed the river by himself, and it was high waters.

Then Paris’s body was recovered 4 days later a few miles down river.

His death spurred the New Mexico State Police Chief to ask Fen to call off the hunt.

Fen refused.

There was a huge amount of anger at Fen over this.

I mean, you can understand why.

I mean, this is a treasure hunt.

It doesn’t need to exist.

And yet, he wouldn’t stop it even after multiple people had died.

That’s a pretty hard stance to take.

Fen justified continuing the hunt by pointing out that any outdoor activity came with risks.

In the summertime, we jump in a swimming pool.

But if somebody drowns in the swim pool, should should we drain the pool or should we teach people to swim? That’s the way I feel about it.

And the treasure community rallied around Fen in support of the hunt.

Here I go.

99.

9% of people who go out looking for his treasure make it home safely with tons of memories and new experiences to treasure.

And Fan did keep warning searchers to be safe, be more careful, be more mindful.

He constantly reminded everyone to not go anywhere a 79 or 80-year-old man couldn’t go.

Many searchers, Dan says, set off on the treasure trail with great excitement, but sometimes were unprepared for how wild the wilderness can be.

Searchers like Eric Ashby understood the risks and were willing to take them.

Fear was not part of his game.

He didn’t know how to be afraid.

Paul Ashby raised his son Eric as a single father in the mountains of Tennessee.

Eric grew up playing sports, riding motorcycles, and was taken by the quest at the center of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Eric was a great kid.

Everybody who knew him loved him.

In 2016, Eric moved to Colorado.

He told his dad he was headed west to take part in his own quest.

Fen’s thrill of the chase.

He became obsessed.

Dad, I can do this.

Was he motivated by the money the treasure represented or by the recognition solving it? Oh, sincerely the recognition.

The money to him was totally irrelevant.

Eric told his father he was going out to search the Arkansas River outside Canyon City, Colorado.

More than a week later, Paul got a phone call from a woman who said her name was Becca.

She told me on the phone, “Mr.

Ashby, your son is drowned.

” And she says, “I’m sorry, Mr.

Ashby, your son is dead.

” And she hung up.

Becca turned out to be Rebecca Ny, who had worked with Eric.

She and three men were with Eric at the river and they had drawn up this contract outlining exactly how they had split the treasure.

She later told police what happened that day.

He said he had swam the river that we were about to cross 10 times before.

And so, you know, we we figured though we should be fine.

Becca said they’d bought a twoperson raft, but Eric got in alone and had no life preserver.

So, he just um jumped out.

It looked like he had made it to the rock, but then we didn’t see him anymore.

And that was right where the rapids, you know, would have taken him.

Becca told police two of the men went down river to look for Eric, where they saw a photographer who told them he called 911.

The photographer also captured this photo of Eric’s empty raft.

Hearing someone had called police, Becca and the others went back to their car and went home.

A decision Becca tried to explain.

I want to know why why no one stayed there to tell us this information because again now I’m easily harm to see what we should have done.

But in the moment, we never been involved with things like that.

Eric stepped into a situation that was impossible.

Nobody could have done it.

The thing that makes it worse is that nobody stopped him and that it was just a case of oh well.

Eric was worth so much more to me than oh well.

After Eric’s body was recovered, Paul traveled to the river to see where his son had died.

I took the excursion train that comes down the gorge and one of the company managers was on the train with me and he went into the bar, the lounge car, and come back with a beer.

He says, “This is for you and your son, and we shared our last beer right there.

” Paul says he never heard from Forest Finn.

If you had been able to reach Forest Fen, what would you say to him? Say, “Mr.

Finn, is this something one day you’re going to have to go to whoever our maker is and say, “Yes, these people were drowning or dying, falling off cliffs, whatever.

” And I could have stopped it, and I chose not to.

I was honestly surprised that it didn’t end in that summer of 2017.

But the hunt did not end.

And in March 2020, a fifth man died.

About 2:00 in the morning, I looked up, the stars were out.

I looked over, you know, to my left, and there was Mike.

It was like, “Oh, I I I remember telling myself, “Oh, no, Mike.

” What do you think of Forest Fen’s decision to continue the treasure hunt? Learn more about the search for the treasure at 48 hours.

com.

Mike was the kind of guy that walked into a room smiling and made everybody feel better just by coming around.

Beth Van O says her longtime boyfriend Mike Sexon knew about Randy, Jeff, Paris, and Eric, the others who died while searching for Fen’s treasure.

I think Mike knew of the dangers.

He just maybe ignored a little bit of it or thought he could get around it.

It had been nearly 3 years since any searchers had died.

I think people thought that maybe they had gotten past that point where people aren’t going to die anymore looking for this.

Mike was convinced he knew where the treasure was along the Colorado Utah border in Dinosaur National Monument.

He made nearly a dozen trips there, but he needed someone with a four-wheel drive truck to help.

That’s how his poker buddy, Steven Enloow, got involved with the hunts.

I was very excited to be with Mike on these trips.

I just enjoyed traveling with him.

This is the first time Steven has spoken publicly about their ordeal that began in late February 2020.

The men rented snowmobiles in Denver and set off for Mike’s spot.

The snowmobiles proved to be too heavy for the depth of snow that we had.

Mike and Steven got stuck, but managed to call 911.

Is anybody injured? No.

No, we’re not injured.

Just stuck.

Looks like I’ve got a pretty good location on you.

I’m going to get you some help headed your way.

Okay.

They were rescued, but the close call didn’t deter the pair from going back out just a few weeks later on March 17th, 2020.

Days into the COVID pandemic, Mike was adamant that he wanted to make another trip before the quarantine started.

Mike and Steven drove to Salt Lake City where they rented snowmobiles they thought would be better on the terrain.

On the second day in the wilderness, they left their truck 5 miles from the main road and headed off for a day trip on the snowmobiles.

We left a lot of our provisions back in the truck thinking we were just going to be gone three or four hours.

We take off from the snowmobiles and we’re on the south side of the mountain this time and we ran out snow.

It became dry.

They left even more supplies on the snowmobiles and set off on foot with a sled to carry home the treasure, which Mike believed was close.

We had some some candy bars, a couple of energy bars, and uh maybe a gallon and a half of water between the two of us.

It didn’t look that far away, but it proved to be uh ridge over ridge over ridge that took a a lot longer than I thought it was going to take.

By 6:00 on Wednesday, I was kind of nervous.

I hadn’t heard from him.

When the men hadn’t returned the snowmobiles Wednesday night, the rental company called the police who called Beth and Steven’s wife.

Not knowing was just the worst.

Just the most awful thing.

Mike tried to hike to higher ground to get a cell signal, but hours later returned unsuccessful.

At that point, both men were so exhausted, all they could do was lay where they were.

The next day, it began to snow.

They had no more water.

I remember my hands and knees eating the snow crystals and blood was dripping from my mouth, staining the snow.

I cried for help.

I asked God.

I asked Jesus.

Just anyone call 911.

We need help.

Desperate for hydration, Steven began drinking his own urine and felt warmth spread throughout his body.

And I I could just feel that was a moment that I’m going to live.

And I told Mike he’s got to quit eating the snow when he was shivering and told him what he needed to do.

And he said he’d rather die.

On Friday, we could hear helicopters on the other side of the mountain side and we knew they were out searching for us.

And so that gave us hope, but we never saw the helicopter.

That night, I woke up about 2:00 in the morning and Mike was about 6 feet away from me.

He was on his hands and knees with his arms cupped around his head, his head flat on the ground, and he had no shirt on.

And so I knew he had died and I knew why.

Hypothermia.

People suffering from extreme cold can feel hot in the moments just before they die.

I I remember telling myself, “Oh no, Mike.

” Later that Saturday, Steven heard the helicopters again, louder this time, and saw them down in the canyon below.

With all the strength he could muster, he grabbed the orange sled and he waved it toward the helicopter.

And then just like in the movies, the helicopter rose up above the cliff and I knew I was saved and I passed out.

Next thing I knew, two guys were picking me up, asking me if I could walk.

I couldn’t even stand.

And I I just remember whispering, “Goodbye, Mike.

” Mike was later taken off the mountain in a body bag.

Beth got the devastating news that afternoon.

I mean, you can say I love you, but until somebody’s really gone and you can’t say it anymore, you just don’t realize you have more than that to say.

A year later, Beth and Mike’s friend Liz Key finds solace in that last photo.

His grand smile, the look in his eye of yes, this is where I want to be.

I am very sad that he’s gone, but I’m glad that he he did what he loved to do.

Mike was the fifth person to die seeking Fen’s treasure.

He was also the last because only 3 months later, Forest Fen made a stunning announcement.

The message was very short and simple.

It said, “The treasure has been found.

[Applause] Early last summer, just as thousands of treasure hunters were about to begin looking yet again for Forest Fen’s chest of gold, they got a piece of news that left them reeling.

My heart stopped, honestly.

I was like, “Oh my god.

” Uh, I cannot believe this has actually happened.

Did somebody really find it or you know and if so who? The news broke on June 6th, 2020 when Fen made the stunning announcement in a brief post he sent to a blog used by the searcher community.

Fen wrote, “The treasure has been found and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago.

I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot.

Overnight, the gold rush that had sustained the searchers was over and many were left feeling a bit cheated.

We didn’t have a name.

We didn’t have where it had been found.

We didn’t have any other any other information other than it had been found where he had left it.

And is it really really really true that they found it? I want to see, you know.

So the guy did send pictures.

For the first time, searchers could see Forest pouring over the contents of his famous treasure chest.

It looked pretty authentic to me, you know, very authentic.

But like everyone else, Katya yearned to know the finder’s solve.

How had he deciphered those clues in the poem? The finder wouldn’t say, but a month later, Fen revealed the treasure had been found in Wyoming.

Then two months later on September 7th, 2020, Forest Fen died at his home where he had just turned 90 years old.

I find myself thinking of Forest often and um I miss our conversations very much.

The Finder may have remained anonymous forever, except for a lawsuit that required the Fen family to reveal his name.

The Finder knew it was only a matter of time.

So, he came out to Dan Barbaresi, who wrote an article for Outside magazine.

Who did find the treasure? A man named Jack Stew found the treasure.

and he was uh you know a medical student who had gotten obsessed with this chase uh around 2018.

He you know was very very committed to his sol.

Hey guys, this is Jack in this online message to other searchers.

Our challenge is to try not to make guesses.

Jack Steuf had shared his approach to cracking fence poem.

It is simple and clear and straightforward.

You need simplicity in yourself.

Dan says Jack had been searching for at least two years.

And then one day in a Wyoming forest, Jack says he uncovered the chest.

It had almost been covered by leaves and debris, but Jack said the lid was still visible.

He became very paranoid that somebody was going to stumble upon him in that moment.

Jack says he hightailed it to Santa Fe where these photos were taken.

They seemed to back up Jack’s story, but fan watcher Toby Eunis was skeptical.

Here is my theory.

The hunt was moving forward.

Forest was aging.

The family, Forest’s family, was frustrated with the state of the search.

Their houses had been broken into.

Their children had been threatened with kidnapping.

They were never lovers of the Forest Fen treasure hunt.

Toby has no evidence, but believes that Fen, knowing he had only months to live, looked around for someone who was close to finding the treasure.

Toby believes Fen reached out to Jack.

I imagine this is how it went.

I want you to know that I’m dying.

I want you to know that I don’t want to leave this treasure hunt to my family and I’m going to ask you for a favor.

Forest had a a saying that he used often.

There’s an old saying, two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

Jack refused our request for an interview, but denied he had any help from Fen.

As he wrote online, “I am not and was never employed by Forest, nor did he pick me in any way to retrieve the treasure.

I was a stranger to him and found the treasure as he designed it to be found.

” I do not believe it is part of a conspiracy engineered by Fen to give Jack the treasure or anything else of that sort.

Dan is in a unique position because he’s the only journalist who has interviewed Jack.

Jack even allowed Dan to examine the treasure.

These photos have rarely been seen.

You were able to actually hold the treasure, to touch it, to see it in person.

Yes.

You know, I have seen and touched and felt and gone through the chest.

It was kind of an incredible moment.

Honestly, Jack told Dan he will not reveal the exact spot where he found the chest because he fears it would become a tourist attraction that would ruin the area’s serenity and natural beauty.

I think we will never find out truly where it was found.

And there could be another reason.

Fen’s original intent to lay down and die at the very spot where he hid his treasure.

I don’t want to be buried.

If I had my way, I’d lay down under a tree and go and uh just like a big old buffalo lays down and dies.

Go back to nature.

Become become part of the earth again.

Jack says he offered to put Fen’s ashes in that special spot, but will not say if the family accepted his offer.

Dan says he doesn’t know what Jack intends to do with the treasure, whether he will sell it peace meal or as one, or perhaps lease it for display.

What is in the end the legacy of Forest Fen? I think the legacy of Forest Fen is extremely complicated.

I think that there were a lot of good things that happened because of it.

There are also some really bad things that happened because of it.

But if you’re Paul Ashb who lost his only son Eric to the hunt, one of the five men to die chasing the thrill, Fen’s legacy is not complicated at all.

He was reckless.

He was willing to ignore the fact that people were dying because all these other people worshiped him.

A lot of people still do look up to Forest Fen and maybe that’s not so surprising when you feel a dream you know live your dream out follow your heart and okay so I didn’t find the treasure but I found many treasures this in itself is the biggest treasure of all that I found so many magical wonderful things I could never replace um without that treasure hunt.

I’m so grateful for Forest.

Thank you.

Thank you, Forest.

CBS next Saturday.

48 Hours brings you backtoback episodes all summer long.

This week, killer contestants.

He is the serial killer that we always suspected him to be.

You just want to wake up and have it not be real.

48 hours prime time double feature next Saturday 98 central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.

Hi, this is Conrad Rug and I’m going to talk to you about social anxiety.

social anxiety, depression, it’s controlling me.

There’s people that love me.

I have a great mom, great dad, but I’m so depressed.

We spent the day walking the beach and we had a conversation and I asked him about school and he’s like, “Um, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

” And I said, you know, don’t worry about it.

Everything is going to be okay.

It was a nice day out with the family.

Nothing to give any hint of what was to come later in the day.

There was no indication anything was going on.

I’ve created a monster out of myself past few years because of my depression.

Racing thoughts, suicidal thoughts.

Do you remember when is the last time you saw your brother? He was like going at the door.

I thought he was just going to his friend’s house.

You got up in the morning and how did you know he hadn’t come home? He wasn’t there and we just like couldn’t find him.

This is not like Conrad not to come home.

Then they found his body and around 5:30 in the afternoon and he died in his truck.

carbon monoxide poisoning.

I will live with this forever.

Um the pain.

Right away we heard from investigators that medical examiner found that it was a suicide.

It wasn’t until they started looking at his phone that they realized that there was something else going on here because on that phone were hundreds and hundreds of texts from Michelle Carter to Conrad Roy urging him to end his life.

You can’t think about it.

You just have to do it.

You said you were going to do it.

Like, I don’t get why you aren’t.

And Michelle Carter admittedly said, “Do it.

” She was kind of making fun of him for for not taking his own life.

I thought you really wanted to die, but apparently you don’t.

I feel played and just stupid.

You’re going to have to prove me wrong because I just don’t think you really want this.

And she kept pressuring him to do it.

You’re ready.

and prepared.

All you have to do is turn the generator on and you be free and happy.

No more pushing it off.

No more waiting.

There was one point where he actually got out of the truck.

Mhm.

And changed his mind.

Yeah.

He was scared and she told him to go back in the truck.

Yes.

Carter charged with involuntary manslaughter.

She faces up to 20 years in prison.

This is totally out of left field.

I coached Michelle.

I know her as a good kid.

I don’t believe that she has a conscience.

She knew exactly what she was doing and what she said.

Hang yourself, jump off a building, stab yourself, I don’t know.

There’s a lot of ways.

And it’s the texts that become the weapon.

How could she cause a death when she was 35 m away? In these circumstances, this is almost akin to loading the gun and handing it over.

Who knows? Who knows when you have your hand in the trigger when you’re sending a text? It’s not realistic what what’s going in my head that keeps on piling and piling and piling.

One month before 18-year-old Conrad Roy took his own life, when the minds of many teens wandered to carefree summer days, Conrad’s thoughts were more serious, introspective.

I need to be comfortable with my skin.

Sitting at his computer and his home in Fair Haven, Massachusetts, Conrad recorded his thoughts on coping with his depression.

I need to relax.

I really do.

He wanted to excel.

He was just wanted to be this like great person.

But in my eyes, Conrad’s mother, Lynn, explains that her son could be his own toughest critic.

It was rough on himself.

He really really struggled with um just disappointing I think myself and his dad.

The sooner I like myself, the better I’m going to be.

Lenroy thought her son was getting better.

I I do have a lot going for me.

He was getting professional help and on an anti-depressant, Selexa.

He had been licensed to be a tugboat captain like his dad.

That’s a huge accomplishment to be a captain.

had just graduated high school and college with a scholarship was on the horizon and he was doing everything that was positive that was, you know, looking towards his future.

But on July 12th, 2014, Conrad drove to a parking lot and using a gasoline powered water pump, sat in his pickup truck as it filled with carbon monoxide, knowingly inhaling the deadly fumes, killing himself.

All the while, his friend Michelle Carter, then 17, was encouraging Conrad from more than 30 miles away on her phone to take his own life.

I don’t understand why you would want someone that was so beautiful inside and out, that had so much that was such a kind person to die.

How do you describe what this young woman did? I cannot only only she she can.

The intersection of the lives of Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy has left a trail of heartbreak and questions about the circumstances that led to such a tragic death.

He’s one of the kindest persons.

He grew up very sensitive, very humble and kind, happy child.

Very happy.

Many pictures of him smiling, laughing until he became a teenager.

And I don’t know if it was the hormones, he just, you know, became anxious.

Conrad was the oldest child in the family with two sisters, Morgan and Camden.

Lynn and Conrad’s father separated when Conrad was 16, and their divorce hit him especially hard.

I think he was just more worried about me.

That’s what boys do.

They worry about their moms um a lot.

Conrad would confide in his friend Ariana Taylor as they spent hours walking along the water.

He didn’t really wasn’t able to explain it to me in a way that I could understand.

So, he kind of just described it as a darkness and how there would be times where he just kind of wanted to isolate himself from everybody.

Conrad’s anxiety and self-doubt had troubled Lynn since he was 16.

He started uh having trouble sleeping and we got him treated and then he had his first uh suicide attempt a year after the age of 17.

Conrad had overdosed on acetaminophen.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital and I never imagined that one of my children would um have those feelings.

Do you think he really intended to kill himself at that point? He did contact a friend.

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