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Murder Near a Geocache


Nerves

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I often have an apprehensive feeling that I’m going to come across a dead person or crime scene while out geocaching.

 

Well, it ALMOST happened. I happened to be caching in Texas with a Del Rio police officer. I dropped a TB and coin in a cache located on a dirt road. It wasn’t way out of town and certainly not an isolated area but the cacher who picked them up on January 26th stumbled across a badly beaten man on the dirt road. He was a murder victim. Little did I know when my friend mentioned investigating a murder scene this weekend that it would be right near the cache we had found a few days earlier! :smile:News story

 

In addition, another (very cool) cache I found just over the border in Mexico had also been the sight of a murder scene. Apparently, the murder victim was laid right at the base of the Tlaloc monument. I wouldn’t have known any of this if my friend wasn't a police officer. Makes me think there might be a lot more crimes near geocaches that we just don’t know about.

Edited by Nerves
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I often have an apprehensive feeling that I’m going to come across a dead person or crime scene while out geocaching.

 

Well, I would say that, on the whole, while geocaching in the USA, that seems to be an irrational fear.

 

Now, if you cache in Ciudad Juarez..........

 

If you cache in areas known for human smuggling...you never know what you're going to find.

 

Here is an interesting cache here in AZ...near my house. While not finding dead bodies....well, look at some of the pics..... Who knew this was going on down the road?

 

GCRJN9

Edited by PhxChem
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I often have an apprehensive feeling that I’m going to come across a dead person or crime scene while out geocaching.

 

Well, I would say that, on the whole, while geocaching in the USA, that seems to be an irrational fear.

 

Now, if you cache in Ciudad Juarez..........

 

If you cache in areas known for human smuggling...you never know what you're going to find.

I agree 110% with what you have written above. My ONLY fears when geocaching, regarding what I might encounter near the cache, are as follows, and are very realistic:

  • fear of being abducted by space aliens, particularly the alien grays from Zeta Reticuli, and then being subjected to their medical experiments and those annoying brain implants in the surgery room of the alien mothership hovering in geosynchronous orbit over Groundspeak headquarters.
  • fear of being abducted by Dr. Phil McGraw, whom, I fear, will confront me as part of an attempted publicity ambush/stunt and announce to me that he is gonna perform a forced "intervention" on me (much as he tried to do with with my buddy Britney two weeks ago in her hotel room, till she threw him out) because he has decided that I am addicted to geocaching and that it is getting out of control.
  • MAJOR fear of being abducted by a band of beautiful hottie wild Amazon women who would then keep me in their wilderness camp and force me to provide services for them to help keep them happy. Good golly gosh, I would REALLY hate that! Really!

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We just had that exact thing happen. I visited a cache on October 20th, and on Nov 16th the Sheriff's Dept. found a body at the cache site. It seems that the camo hiding the cache may have ended up in evidence!

 

See "Serpent's Leap" (GC11RQ9)

 

From what I understand, this was a homicide which was dumped at this location. The body wasn't found by a cacher though as (far as I know) no one has claimed the FTF :D !

 

:( (sorry, couldn't resist) :D .

 

DCC

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A few months back, near a cache I had found less than a month before, a man was found to have committed suicide by homemade guillotine. I don't know exactly how far from the cache this was, but it was in the same small stretch of woods behind a shopping center.

News story

The cache

 

Funny you mention this, I was just going to post this and I'm not sure either relative to the cache the distance but he was found on Sunday and apparently killed himself on Friday. My parents where there on that Saturday for that cache. They found it and didn't see the body but my mom said after she heard about it she had an eerie feeling the whole time she was out there.

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As I was heading to the cache White Hot Cache (GCJ6YJ), I left the trail and immediately came across crime scene tape. Keep in mind that this is an area of dense woods and I was a little freaked out. Turns out a body was discovered a few days earlier there. Still no word on the cause of death there.

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if there are that many murders near where you are caching, I'd recommend moving somewhere less deadly.

 

I don't live there and Del Rio is not a large city - population is about 35,000.

 

What I think is that there are alot more crimes near geocaches than we know about. We just don't hear about all of them. We've had a few bodies dumped near cache sites here in Rhode Island. Some of those murders become public information and some don't.

 

(That's pretty creepy about the guillotine. I think I'd need a change of pants and some strong medication if I came across that.) :laughing:

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What I think is that there are alot more crimes near geocaches than we know about.

 

That's because geocaches are placed in all sorts of places. If you don't like the looks of an area, or don't feel comfortable, by all means, don't cache there.

 

But crimes also happen near roads. But do we stop driving?

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Makes me think there might be a lot more crimes near geocaches that we just don’t know about.

 

Are there crimes near geocaches, or are there just geocaches near crimes?

 

the criminals probably don't log on to geocaching.com to scout out their new body hiding spots... :rolleyes:

With the cache density in most urban and suburban areas I would hazard a guess that most murders in the US happen within a mile of a cache.

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This was not a murder scene but my son and I placed his only geocache in a woodpile that, we found out later, was a cache for stolen purses. We called the sheriff, showed them the location and explained our own purpose for being there. They told us that, what they presumed was a guy, liked to hide purses in woodpiles. They called him "The Beaver"; weird thing is, I think I may have met him. There was a real strange dude in the area once. I had seen him elsewhere too and the other place was right along the trail that passed the pile. When I e-mailed the sheriff to tell the that I might have a suspect and even knew where he worked, they never got back to me.

 

-it

Edited by Iowa Tom
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I don't live there and Del Rio is not a large city - population is about 35,000.

 

Unfortunately, it IS near the U.S./Mexico border. Unfortunately, many unsavory things happen (drug smuggling, people smuggling) in many of those areas, even more if they are rural...not a lot of witnesses.

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I'd say that caches placed near interstate rest areas get the most body dumps. Most people stay on the mowed lawn, use the facilities and grab a drink then get back in the car. To a criminal, the woods behind a rest area are ideal. They have no idea a small community known as geocachers venture off the beaten path in the search of tupperware.

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I'd say that caches placed near interstate rest areas get the most body dumps. Most people stay on the mowed lawn, use the facilities and grab a drink then get back in the car. To a criminal, the woods behind a rest area are ideal. They have no idea a small community known as geocachers venture off the beaten path in the search of tupperware.

In the old days they would get rid of the bodies by sinking them in the water with chains or cement shoes.

I guess today murders are just getting lazy, they must have watched to much television and played to many video games when they were kids.

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I'd say that caches placed near interstate rest areas get the most body dumps. Most people stay on the mowed lawn, use the facilities and grab a drink then get back in the car. To a criminal, the woods behind a rest area are ideal. They have no idea a small community known as geocachers venture off the beaten path in the search of tupperware.

In the old days they would get rid of the bodies by sinking them in the water with chains or cement shoes.

I guess today murders are just getting lazy, they must have watched to much television and played to many video games when they were kids.

\

It's kind of odd but Ive noticed the murderers out here tend to dump the bodies in fairly wooded areas. We'll hear about bodies found dumped near trails or off dirt roads. Most of those bodies are women it seems. Plenty of suicides out in the woods too. The rest areas seem reserved for men who want to cavort in the woods together but not kill each other. But then, that's a different topic...

 

The cement blocks in the bay method is still popular I'm sure but does take more effort...lug the body into the car, then into the boat, head out into the bay and dump the body overboard. All of this without being seen. I'm guessing they have to be alot more organized about planning.

Edited by Nerves
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A recent fear due to the hiker killed in Georgia and the killer poss linked to other hiker killings. And I don't usually scare easily but these stories have put my hair on end.

 

Hiker Killings

 

Irene Bryant's body was found not too far from my Pretty In Pink 02 cache. While searching for the missing hikers at least one of my caches in the area was found and logged by one of the SAR guys. And Irene's body was actually found by a group containing two active geocachers.

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Check out this log from a cache in the Dawsonville wildlife management area. I did this cache a couple of months before this incident occurred:

 

log link

 

This is also the same wildlife management area where the body of the recent missing hiker in Georgia was found. This WMA host several caches.

 

I note that the sad emotional experience didn't stop them from getting a smiley. strange....

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Coincidence will happen. Such is life.

 

I recently found my self in a location while caching that I had not been to in nearly 25 years. While I was there signing the log, I realized that the last time I was on that same street, a shootout took place that killed two people while I was a mere 1/4 mile from the scene.

 

In this society (US) we have some pretty big cites with some pretty big problems. Sure, one day you can be signing a nano log only to realize the next that that vagrant that was begging you for a quarter just after you put the nano back in place is the same guy in the news that was beaten to death over a food stamp.

 

Humanity sucks doesn't it?

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LEO's would be well served to develop a relationship with their local geocaching community. We know where a lot of the good hiding spots are and we visit them frequently. We have a lot of eyes out there. It is another potential of how geocaching organizations could help the local govenments. Just a thought.

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[*] MAJOR fear of being abducted by a band of beautiful hottie wild Amazon women who would then keep me in their wilderness camp and force me to provide services for them to help keep them happy. Good golly gosh, I would REALLY hate that! Really!

 

Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I... I do deny them my essence" ;);):lol:

Edited by eagletrek
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LEO's would be well served to develop a relationship with their local geocaching community. We know where a lot of the good hiding spots are and we visit them frequently. We have a lot of eyes out there. It is another potential of how geocaching organizations could help the local govenments. Just a thought.

There's nothing stopping you from picking up the phone and calling in any illegal activity you come across. Don't expect the police to call you every Friday afternoon checking in to see if you've come across anything. Take the initiative and make the call when you find something.

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  • MAJOR fear of being abducted by a band of beautiful hottie wild Amazon women who would then keep me in their wilderness camp and force me to provide services for them to help keep them happy. Good golly gosh, I would REALLY hate that! Really!

"Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I... I do deny them my essence" ;):lol::lol:

Dr. Zhivago! General Jack Ripper is one of my favorites!

"Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water....?"

 

:o;);):P

 

:D

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It's kind of odd but Ive noticed the murderers out here tend to dump the bodies in fairly wooded areas. We'll hear about bodies found dumped near trails or off dirt roads. Most of those bodies are women it seems. Plenty of suicides out in the woods too. The rest areas seem reserved for men who want to cavort in the woods together but not kill each other. But then, that's a different topic...

 

The cement blocks in the bay method is still popular I'm sure but does take more effort...lug the body into the car, then into the boat, head out into the bay and dump the body overboard. All of this without being seen. I'm guessing they have to be alot more organized about planning.

 

Anyone else here want to visit Rhode Island? Hello......? Hellooooo.......?

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There have been a few cases where geocachers stumbled on murder victims, or were bodies were found near a cache

 

They were probably FTF hound competition.

 

There is a rather famous cache in Rochester that a group went for a few months ago. One person in the group said that she never would have gone after it had she not been with a group of 5 other cachers. Apparently there was a lot of open drug use and sales very close to the entrance to a tunnel where the cache is located.

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Coincidence will happen. Such is life.

 

I recently found my self in a location while caching that I had not been to in nearly 25 years. While I was there signing the log, I realized that the last time I was on that same street, a shootout took place that killed two people while I was a mere 1/4 mile from the scene.

 

In this society (US) we have some pretty big cites with some pretty big problems. Sure, one day you can be signing a nano log only to realize the next that that vagrant that was begging you for a quarter just after you put the nano back in place is the same guy in the news that was beaten to death over a food stamp.

 

Humanity sucks doesn't it?

 

It's not just the U.S. I was in Zambia on business awhile back and had an overnight layover in Johannesburg, SA. Of course, I searched geocaching.com to see if I could find some caches close to the hotel I had picked out. After reading some tripadvisor logs about my first choice hotel being robbed *twice* at gunpoint in the last year (not just the hotel, but everyone in the lobby as well) I chose a different hotel. I was able to find 1 cache that was just outside the grounds of the hotel I stayed at (which had a wall completely around the perimeter and guarded gates at the only entrance) and was within 200' of another one on the other side of the wall but I was a bit spooked about wandering around the neighborhood by myself to go for it. I didn't get a cache in Zambia but I crossed over the border into Zimbabwe and got one.

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I don't live there and Del Rio is not a large city - population is about 35,000.

 

What I think is that there are alot more crimes near geocaches than we know about. We just don't hear about all of them. We've had a few bodies dumped near cache sites here in Rhode Island. Some of those murders become public information and some don't.

 

(That's pretty creepy about the guillotine. I think I'd need a change of pants and some strong medication if I came across that.) ;)

 

The numbers have been going up ever since Buddy got paroled. ;)

 

VOTE CIANCI IN '08 !

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Funny you should ask....two of us were out last week. Wanted to take photos of a Travelbug at a specific location. Best access was a shopping center parking lot. We backed up to a perimeter chain link fence at a section that was free of vegetation. Place the TBs on the top rail of the fence, took our photos with intended landmark in the background, and moved to a second parking spot about 30 feet away for more photos. Next morning on the news is a breaking story about a murder victim found at a shopping center restaurant in the city we had visited. Sure enough, when they showed the scene the first parking spot we used was behind the newscaster (and behind the tape). The restaurant was right there! :):D The camera panned to the emergency vehicles who were parked on the driveway next to the 2nd parking place we used. Both sections of fence behind those spots were logical places for someone to jump the fence and get away quickly. Our fingerprints are all over the fence. No guns at the door yet. We're both in the system for good reasons so it would not be hard to track us down. java script:emoticon(':P',%20'smid_16')

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Not to make light of the subject... actually to make light of the subject because I hate dark and gloomy things. I have often threatened to murder my friends, students, and athletes, bury their body really deep in the ground and place a cache on top of it. Of course I would never really follow through but it always serves for a good laugh especially with my caching buddies. :D

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It so happens that I deliberately created a geocache ABOUT a murder site. The Murder of Sheriff Kemp, GC18PB9 Of course it was 1910....

 

I actually toyed with this idea as well. I thought it would be interesting to do a series of Zodiac killer caches. My significant other thought it just showed incredibly poor taste :D .

 

I did find a cache that was unknowingly placed just feet from where Zodiac's first victim fell.

 

DCC

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