By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In 2010, Forrest Fenn (1930-2020) the owner of a gallery in Santa Fe, hid a bronze treasure chest that weighed 20 pounds and contained gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry, and gemstones estimated to be worth $2 million. He wrote a book with hints as to where the treasure was hidden. The romance and adventure titillated treasure hunters to search New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, however what many of them found was unusual and premature death.
THE BEGINNING
There were many that could not resist the siren's call of finding a treasure with a map in the form of a poem found in Fenn's memoirs The Thrill of the Chase (2010). But like many tales of easy fortunes, there's a down side, and it appeared that Fenn's Treasure didn't want to be found. Some would call it superstition, and others bad luck, but those who measure the odds considered it was cursed. The public was introduced to Forrest Fenn's challenge when an article was written in August, 2012 about the hidden treasure. Fenn described where he "tossed in ancient figurines, a 17th-century Spanish ring, and turquoise beads excavated from a cliff dwelling near Mesa Verde. He added American eagle gold coins, gold nuggets, a vial of gold dust, two gold discs, and 'a lot of jewelry,' including rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. Among these wonders he included a copy of his own autobiography, rolled and stuffed into an ancient olive jar." Forrest Fenn was a native Texan who arrived in Santa Fe in 1972, after retiring from the Air Force where he served as a fighter pilot. He had a modest pension, a high school education and no background in the antiquities market, but in a short time he became a successful dealer. By his own admission he had been collecting unusual and old things since he was a child. His first discovery was an old arrowhead. For twenty years he ran a successful art gallery, and also sold Native American antiquities. In 2009, an undercover agent toured his house which had a collection to rival what was found at his gallery for an operation code named Cerberus Action. The FBI and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) raided his home based on a suspicion of grave-robbing and illegally obtained artifacts. They found nothing. The following year he stashed his lockbox, and laid the seed for thousands of hopeful hunters to scour through national parks and anywhere that corresponded to his clues.
Randy Bilyeu moved west in order to search for Fenn's Treasure, then the 54-year-old mysteriously disappeared in January, 2016. He had scouted an area close to Bandelier National Monument. On January 5 he took a GPS device, his dog Leo and set out on a raft on the Rio Grande. He didn't return and his family issued a missing person's report.
On January 15 only his dog and raft were found. In the raft was a map related to the treasure hunt and food, and information about blog entries where treasure hunters shared their experiences and thoughts on what the clues in the poem meant. An intensive search spread out in the area, but it wasn't until the summer of 2016 that Bilyeu's skeletal remains were discovered by a crew with the Army Corps of Engineers along the Rio Grande. Due to the condition of the remains an autopsy could not determine why he died. He didn't have any broken bones or other skeletal injuries. It's theorized he was caught in winter in a remote spot where the temperature dropped to below freezing, and he died from hypothermia or dehydration. He suffered from high blood pressure, which could have also caused his death.
Leo was eventually adopted by flight nurse Erin Johnson who was part of a medical helicopter crew sent out to look for Randy.
Randy Bilyeu's ex-wife Linda said, "'There's no treasure - it's not real. He lost his life for a hoax."' Linda Bilyeu along with others asked Fenn to end the treasure hunt. Hi reply was, "As with deer hunters and fishermen, there is an inherent risk that comes with hiking the canyons and mountain trails. The treasure is not hidden in a dangerous spot and I have said that no one should search in a place where an 80-year-old man could not hide it." The poem that sent many flocking to different areas in the Southwest in search of a treasure read:
2017 was a deadly year for Fenn Treasure hunters.
Jeff Murphy, 53 from Batavia, Illinois was found dead from a fall while hiking on Turkey Pen Peak in Yellowstone National Park, near the North Entrance of the park. His wife had reported him missing the day before on June 8, 2017. Initially the officials at Yellowstone were mum about the details of Murphy's case, but a FOIA request from KULR-TV found that Murphy's wife had told authorities he was searching for the treasure when he went into the park. This was revealed in 2018, and Murphy was added as the fourth person to die while searching for the treasure.
In June, Pastor Paris Wallace, 52, went hunting for Fenn's Treasure, and he disappeared in the area of Espanola, New Mexico. The landscape is full of arroyos and steep mountains, but he had gone alone and kept the reason to himself. His wife reported him missing when he failed to show up for a planned family meeting on June 14. By then Wallace had been missing for 40 hours.
Wallace had a friend named Wendell Smith, who himself had gone on 19 trips to find Fenn's Treasure. On a hunch that Wallace was out seeking the treasure, he posted a message on a 2,500 member chat group where participants discussed Fenn's clues. A woman with the username "lifesablaze" went to scout an area she was familiar with, and that matched some of the clues Fenn wrote about. Within two hours she found Wallace's vehicle just north of Pilar. Until then law enforcement was using cellphone technology, but she was the one that actually found his car near the Taos Junction Bridge just north of Pilar. His belongings were found at a Rodeway Inn in Espanola, and his backpack in the waters of the Rio Grande a few miles downstream. His body was found in the Rio Grande gorge 5 to 7 miles from where his car was left parked. Wallace had drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande.
A month later Eric Ashby, 31, went missing. He too was searching for Fenn's Treasure. His raft capsized on the Arkansas River, and he was last seen clinging to a rock. In an ironic twist he moved to Colorado 4 months before specifically to search for the treasure, little did he imagine he was hunting for his own death.
Eric told his father Paul that he was going to the Arkansas River to search for the treasure. He drowned on June 28, and his companions didn't report his disappearance until 10 days later. A week after he left with companions to hunt the treasure, a woman called Paul Ashby on the phone and said, "Mr. Ashby, your son has drowned. I'm sorry, Mr. Ashby, your son is dead." Then she hung up. The caller was Rebecca "Becca" Nies who worked with Eric. She along with Eric and three men met at the river, all with the same intent of finding the treasure. They'd even drawn up a contract detailing how they'd split the find. She explained to authorities that Eric told them he'd swam the river 10 times before, and they thought he would be okay, even though he was in a two-person raft with no life preserver. According to her, two men went back to find him, and they saw a photographer who told them he'd called 911. She said they returned to their car and went home. Nies said they left because they were scared, because they'd never been involved in anything like that.
Eric's body was not positively identified until the end of January, 2018. The body had been discovered in July, but the sheriff's department described it as "unidentifiable." His father provided DNA which was matched to a sample taken during the autopsy. This confirmed the identity of the body recovered.
His death inspired the creation of "Eric's Law" a proposal to hold responsible a person who fails to help those in life-threatening situations.
In 2020, Chanon Thompson, 33, went in search for Fenn's Treasure in New Mexico's Santa Fe National Forest. Seven miles in she realized she was lost. She spent two nights in freezing weather before the New Mexico State Police found her. She almost became a member of the Fenn's Treasure Dead Pool.
One that was not so lucky was Mike Sexson, 53, who was convinced the treasure was along the Colorado-Utah border in Dinosaur National Monument. He'd made a dozen trips there, but he involved his poker buddy Steven Inlow because he needed a 4-wheel drive truck to further his explorations. In February 2020, both men rented snowmobiles in Denver. The snowmobiles got stuck because they were too heavy for the snow depth. They were rescued, and they returned the following month. This time they rented snowmobiles out of Utah, leaving their truck 5 miles from the main road along with part of their provisions. They were exploring the south side of the mountain, and this time they ran out of snow. They left more supplies on the snowmobiles, and set off on foot with a sled to hopefully carry the treasure back, which Mike was convinced was close. They only had energy bars, and a gallon-and-a-half of water for the two of them. When the men failed to return the snowmobiles to the rental company, they called the police who in turn called Mike's girlfriend and Steven's wife. Both men were in an area with no cell signal. The next day it started to snow, and they had no water left. They tried eating snow, but Steve Inlow finally drank his own urine and it warmed his body. He told Mike to do the same, but he refused, saying he'd rather die. Two days later Mike died of hypothermia. The next day Steven was rescued. Their vehicle was only a mile from where they were found. This was the last and final death tied to Fenn's Treasure.
On June 6, 2020, Forrest Fenn made a brief post on a blog used by the searcher community:
"It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains 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. I congratulate the thousands of people who participated in the search and hope they will continue to be drawn by the promise of other discoveries. So the search is over. Look for more information and photos in the coming days." Fenn didn't specify who found it or the location. On September 7, 2020 Forrest Fenn died at his home from a heart attack. He had just turned 90 years old. A lawsuit forced the Fenn family to disclose the finder of Fenn's Treasure. His name was Jack Stuef, a medical student who started searching for it in 2018. Many of the searchers were not convinced with the story. They believed that Forrest knew he would not live long, and his family was dealing with negative repercussions tied to the treasure hunt. In 2018, Robert Miller was arrested after he broke into the Fenn home, and was stealing a Spanish-style chest he believed was the treasure box. There were also threats against the family. Probably with their urging, Fenn looked for someone to be the finder of the treasure. Some believed the treasure hunt was legitimate, but others thought it had never existed to begin with. Jack Stuef denied being employed by Fenn or being picked to find the treasure. On September 19,2022, Stuef sold the treasure to Tesouro Sagrado Holdings LLC, which placed 476 pieces up for auction. The sale held in December, 2022 netted $1.3 million. Forrest was known for an old saying, that two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
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