I was about eighty feet from the top of Sunrise Mountain when I pulled out my camera to capture the stunning vista below me. True to its name, the mountain framed a rising sun, whose majestic ascent highlighted the mist-filled valley below in a glowing light.
I embraced the stillness and tranquility of the moment. Even after packing away my camera and continuing to climb, I remained mesmerized by the expansive valley to the east. It wasn’t until I came upon flat terrain and the open-air pavilion that marked the summit that I looked away from the valley.
I froze.
My stomach lurched, and I felt sick.
It couldn’t be . . .
I stood frozen, and the seconds felt like minutes as I tried to process what my eyes were telling me.
There, twenty feet away, a limp and motionless body swayed gently from a rope tied to the rafters of the pavilion.
I saw the rope tied to the rafters, tautly connecting to the neck of a young man. His face was pale and framed by smooth, black hair. His eyes were closed, and his head was cocked to the side above his gruesome collar of rope.
He was wearing a maroon shirt and loose green khakis. His hands were tied behind his back. His fingers were clasped together, and the thin twine was cutting into his skin. His black shoes pointed to the cement floor, with nothing between them and the ground but three feet of air.
I couldn’t breathe; my stomach churned and my eyes watered. I turned and ran. I tried to run as fast as I could, but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, and my feet stumbled over the rocks. The scene I had just witnessed was preserved in perfect detail in my mind, but my thoughts were moving too rapidly to provide answers.
What had I just seen? Was it a suicide? Was it a murder? Were there other people around? Was this a sick joke? Why were his hands tied? Had I really just seen what I thought I saw, or was my mind playing tricks on me? What do I do?
What do I do? That question stopped the stream of inquiries, and when I was about four hundred yards from the pavilion, I stopped, pulled out my cell phone, and called 911.
I spoke with a dispatcher, who immediately patched me through to the local police. I choked out the details to the police officer. He began to reassure me and give me instructions—and that’s when I lost him. My cell phone had dropped the call.
Frantic, I again dialed 911 and began to talk to a different dispatcher. I told her the same thing that I had told the first dispatcher and the cop, but she refused to reconnect me with police.
“I need to know where your car is,” she said.
“I don’t have a car. I hiked here.”
“Well, where did you park your car?”
“I didn’t park anywhere. I’m an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker.”
“What county are you in?”
“I don’t know what county I’m in. I’m at Sunrise Mountain in New Jersey.”
“So where do you live in New Jersey?”
“I don’t live in New Jersey.”
“Then where is your car?”
“Please, I just came across a dead body, I need to talk to the police. I was just talking to them and I got cut off. Please connect me to the police.”
“First tell me where your car is. Then I will connect you to the police.”
I was scared, I knew I would probably lose cell reception again, and all I wanted to do was talk with the police. Losing my composure, I begin crying into the phone and asking over and over if I could talk to the police. The woman insisted that I calm down and refused to patch me through. But her chiding simply increased my hysterics.
Finally, I took a deep breath and began mumbling an explanation of thru-hiking.
The woman interrupted my second sentence and asked how hiking some trail that started in Georgia was relevant to a death in New Jersey.
“Who are you talking to?” I heard a man’s voice in the background addressing the dispatcher, and then I heard him say, “Patch her through to the police now.”
When I was reconnected with the police, they seemed to know more about the body and the pavilion than I remembered telling them. It didn’t make sense until they called me Susan.
“My name’s not Susan,” I replied.
“You’re not Susan? Have you spoken with the officers at the pavilion?”
“There aren’t any officers at the pavilion.”
“Yes, there are.”
Twenty minutes must have passed since I talked with the initial officer, and within that time another woman, a local day-hiker, had approached Sunrise Mountain pavilion from a parking lot on the north side of the mountain and witnessed the same sight that now haunted me.
The police had been alerted by my initial call, but after I lost the connection, Susan called, and from that point on, they assumed we were the same person. It wasn’t until I assured them that I was not Susan and did not have an officer standing beside me that they sorted out the confusion.
The voice on the other line then asked me to approach the pavilion and talk with an officer.
With a weak and shaky voice, I responded, “Is the body still there?”
“Yes, the body won’t be removed until the crime scene investigation is complete.”
With gasping breaths, I said, “I . . . I don’t want to see it again.”
The officer understood, and he instructed me to approach the summit while staying on the phone with him, and to call up to the pavilion when I was within earshot. He would instruct an officer to come down and meet me.
Within a few minutes, two officers were standing beside me. Gently and informally, they began to ask me questions—first for my sake, then for their own.
They asked me where I was hiking from, who I was hiking with, and if I had any friends or family in the area that they could contact.
Then they eased into the mandatory questions: whether I knew the victim, if I had seen anyone else this morning, whether I had noticed anything unusual the night before, and when I had first arrived at the scene.
Then one of the officers asked, “Do you have any questions for us?”
I looked up and sputtered, “Wa–was it a suicide?”
“We won’t know for sure until after the investigation, but all initial signs point to suicide.”
“Why were his hands tied?” I asked.
“Sometimes when people hang themselves, they’ll tie their hands behind their back. That prevents them from struggling and pulling at the rope.”
The answer gave me a pain in my chest and I suddenly felt nauseated. Why would a person try to kill himself if he knew that he would struggle against it? What the officer was saying, what I was hearing—it sounded so unnatural.
When the officer continued to explain the details of asphyxiation, I quickly asked him to stop. He did. Then he asked, “Is this your first stiff?”
At sunrise, this young man had had a story, a family, a lifetime of contributions and interactions. And now, only a few short hours later, he was simply a “stiff”?
My disgust must have been apparent, because without waiting for a response, the other officer quickly changed the subject.
“We can take you into the station to talk to a counselor if you want.”
“Yeah,” said the first one, “or we could help you find a motel room if you want to spend a night off the trail.”
“If you want us to contact friends or family for you, we will.”
The cops were trying to be helpful, but none of the options they presented seemed like the right choice. I was having a hard time making decisions. I didn’t want to speak with a counselor, a hotel room would be too expensive, and I definitely didn’t want to tell my parents. My mom would never let me keep hiking after this.
“You don’t have to decide right now. Why don’t you just think about it?” suggested the first officer.
Then the second officer tried to change the subject again.
“Have you seen a bear yet?” he said.
“Um . . . no, but I want to.”
“Oh, you’re bound to see a bear here. This is New Jersey. we have bears everywhere, around every turn. Trust me, you’re not going to leave the state without seeing one.”
Bears were a point of common interest that kept me from crying. And not knowing how else to comfort me, the officers mumbled about bears for ten minutes until the chief officer walked down the hill and asked me: “Have you decided what you want to do?”
“I want to hike,” I said.
He silently looked at me and nodded his head.
It was the hardest day of my life.
The only hiker I saw after leaving the pavilion was Neon, and I was in no mood to answer his questions about why the trail had been rerouted and what all the police were doing at Sunrise Mountain.
I had tears in my eyes for most of the day. I wanted to call someone, but I didn’t want my parents to find out what had happened, and I didn’t know what to say to my friends. At one point, I wasn’t paying attention to the trail and I became lost on a spur. It took almost an hour for me to find my way back.
Despite my sadness and confusion, I was glad that I was hiking. I felt like if I had gone into town with the officers, I wouldn’t have wanted to get back on the trail. It would have been good to talk to a counselor about what had happened, but the trail provided its own sort of therapy.
There was something about hiking, something about making forward progress that felt healing. In a way, it was good to be processing the death alone on the trail. I could deal with it in my own time and think through it completely. I didn’t have to repress thoughts of the suicide and try to go on with everyday life. Instead, I was forced to face it head on. I was forced to think about what had happened, what I had seen, and then I could start to work my way through it, one step at a time.
I have never been through a day where I experienced such a vast array of emotions. At first, I was angry with the victim, but then I was moved with sympathy for his family. I questioned why God had put me in this situation, and how the smallest of choices could have changed or prevented the morning’s events.
Mostly, I was upset over how premeditated the victim’s death seemed, and how he had tied his hands so he wouldn’t struggle. I think the twine around his hands bothered me most, even more than the rope around his neck. Tying your hands is admitting that every natural instinct is to fight and live.
I wondered why he had chosen to do it here, in nature. Why couldn’t he have done it in a dark room somewhere? And why did he choose hanging? Why such a dramatic death?
Eventually, the questions began to fade, and the sense of physical illness and tension started to subside. I began to sense something larger and more powerful at work in me. And although I didn’t come to an understanding of that morning’s events, I was filled with gratitude for the joy, hope, and love that filled my life. I thanked God for the warm breeze that caressed my skin, the chirping birds that sang to me in the woods, and for my family and friends back home. I was thankful for my life, and for the life all around me.
That afternoon, the sky opened up and flooded the ground, but that evening the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and the sunset cast a flaming orange glow across the sky.
When I went to bed, I was still shaken, but I sensed God’s presence and felt very aware of all the blessings that filled my life.
At sunrise, I awoke and began hiking. I had planned to hike through the day, but after an hour and a half, I came to a road. A stile separated the trail from the road, and as I climbed over it, a car driving down the highway slowed down and pulled off beside me.
The lady in the driver’s seat rolled down her window. “Hey, I’m headed up the road to Vernon. If you want to go to town, I can take you there.”
It’s rare to be offered a ride without hitchhiking, and I didn’t want to pass it up. I didn’t need to resupply, but I figured that a hot lunch might raise my spirits.
Upon arriving in the small town and climbing out of the car, I heard church bells ringing. I had totally forgotten that it was Sunday. As I looked around, I could make out four churches within a quarter mile. It was strange that the woman had dropped me off here instead of at a grocery store or restaurant.
As I continued to listen to the bells, they seemed to chime with the promise of comfort. I followed the music to an Episcopal church that had a hiker hostel in the basement, and I decided I would attend the service there. However, as I approached the front door of the Episcopal church, a neighboring Methodist church caught my eye. I had no preference between Methodist and Episcopal churches, but a sudden inexplicable urge, like a strong wind, built up inside my body and drew me to the Methodist chapel.
I left my pack by the side of the building and slipped inside the sanctuary to claim a seat by myself in the back pew.
The service started with the hymn “In the Garden.” I could remember my grandmother humming this song around the house when I was little, but I didn’t remember all the words. That morning as the congregation sang, “And He walks with me, and He talks with me. And He tells me I am his own,” The lyrics returned to me and flooded my heart.
The scripture reading that followed was Psalm 23, a chapter I had heard so many times that it had lost its meaning. But that morning I recited the passage as if I were speaking the words for the first time.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
The pastor used those words to preach a sermon on comfort. He talked about allowing God to comfort and heal us, and how we have a responsibility to try to comfort others. At the end of his message, he concluded with a story.
“There is a woman in our congregation who came across a suicide yesterday,” he began.
What? I looked to my left and my right and then grew red in the face. How did he know I was here?
“She has stayed in contact with the police and the family of the victim, and she has several ways that we can pray for them and serve them this week. If you have time to make them a meal or serve the family in other ways, meet Susan at the choir pew after church.”
Susan? That was the name of the woman who had approached Sunrise Mountain pavilion from the north while I was on my cell phone. She was here?
After the service, in a congregation of less than forty people, thirty miles away from Sunrise Mountain, I met Susan.
My conversation with her gave me more details about the young man and the investigation. While I had set off hiking into the woods after my brief talk with the officers, Susan had spent much of the day with the police.
“So was it really a suicide?” I asked.
“Yes, he left a note for his family at home before he did it.”
“How old was he?”
“Twenty-four. He grew up just a few miles down the road. He was a graphic designer and a musician. He had moved to the city to work, but he had come back home recently. His parents and sisters are taking it very hard.”
As sorrowful as it was, learning about the young man’s life helped me to focus on what he had contributed to the world, as opposed to what he had taken away. He was more than the “stiff” that the officers referred to; he was a brother and a son, an artist, and a gifted instrumentalist.
Then, more for comparison than compassion, I asked Susan, “How are you? Are you okay?”
Susan teared up. “Yesterday was a hard day. But it made me appreciate my faith, my family, and my life more. It made me realize how much I take for granted. It also makes me want to help people who may be struggling and don’t know where they can turn. I’ll never forget what I saw at the pavilion, but I hope I can use my experience to become more understanding. I promised myself that I would try to be a better friend and family member, and a better listener.”
After my talk with Susan, I felt empty—in a good way. It was like I had been carrying
this heavy load, and being able to share it with someone who understood, who really understood, made me feel lighter.
I wish that I could say things got better over the next few days, but they didn’t. I still had times when I enjoyed being on the trail—like when I saw a woodpecker knocking on a tree, or a patch of wildflowers lining the trail—but overall I was not doing well.
I was frustrated that even though it had been more than two days since I left Sunrise Mountain, the scene I witnessed for just a few seconds remained present in acute detail in my mind. I couldn’t remember the name of the officers I had spoken with or what they looked like, but every aspect of the victim was still vivid, especially his pale face and swollen hands; hands that had struggled and bled against the rope that bound them.
As I hiked around turns in the trail, I would experience flashbacks to Sunrise Mountain. My mind would trick me into thinking that every loose limb hanging from a tree was a dangling body. And I became uneasy at any shelter that had rafters in it. The weather didn’t help either. Ever since leaving Vernon, New Jersey, I had been hiking in a cold, steady rain. New York was stuck in a nor’easter, and I was stuck in New York.
I began to feel rundown, not because of the event of two days before, but from the lingering effect it was having on me. I realized that the incident would always be a part of who I was, and the vivid image of a man hanging from the rafters would always be stored away in my subconscious. Although I had left New Jersey and entered New York, I knew that it didn’t matter how fast I hiked or how many miles I put in. I could never outrun the events at Sunrise Mountain pavilion. The suicide had happened, and although I knew the pain would ease, I still agonized over the permanence of the act.
When I arrived at the top of Bear Mountain, I found myself completely alone. The helpful tip I had left myself in my Data Book read “Bear Mountain—Very CROWDED.” Since bear Mountain State Park was just forty miles from New York City, I figured it must be crowded most of the time—just not in a nor’easter, and not when I needed company.
Becoming Odyssa Page 21
