“Black Rock, Nev. (AP) – A woman found dead in desert has marring the opening of this years ‘Burning Man’ festivities. The cause of death is still being investigated. Authorities have not released her name pending notification of next of kin.”

The search stretched on for days, weeks and even months, but no other sign of the Winap-Denault woman was found in or around the caves. The case might have been forgotten and left as two dusty file boxes on a shelf if it hadn’t been for two off-roaders playing on the ash-white dust of the Black Rock desert.

“Yeah, Sheriff, you need to come out here and see this,” the deputy told his boss via cellphone.

The Deputy refused to explain any further, citing the fact that anyone with the right technology could listen in on what was being said. So as not to belabor the point, the Sheriff said, “Okay, I’m on my way.”

Less than 45 minutes, the Washoe County Sheriff’s helicopter, Raven appeared in the southwestern sky. The pilot deftly touched the skids in the sandy loam despite his inability to clearly see the ground from above due to the dust the rotors kicked up.

The sheriff waited until the blades of the craft had slow sufficiently to allow most of the playa’s dry earth to settle before getting out and joining his deputy. “What’s so important that I had to see this dead body first hand?”

“Something strange about this,” he answered. “I can’t find a single foot, tire print or a drag mark anywhere around her. And from the lack of trauma to the body, it doesn’t seem that she was dropped from a plane or anything. It’s like she simply appeared out of thin air.”

“That’s absurd. The wind probably wiped the prints away.”

“No, sir. There are prints out here from years ago. I mean I can show you were the truck was driven and the horse chased down during the filming of ‘The Misfits.’ They’re still out there.”

The Sheriff rubbed his chin, perplexed by the scene as he stepped closer to the naked body, save for a single sock on her left foot. “Have you taken photographs, yet?”

“First thing after I met with the witnesses, who are over there by my vehicle.”

“Okay. I agree that somethings off here. I’ll notify the coroner’s office and get an evidence team out here.”

He squatted down and touched the alabaster-white skin of the dead woman and shook his head. The Sheriff knew it was going to be a long day as walked back to the helicopter, climbed in and directed the pilot to return to the office.

As the aircraft lifted away, he saw the deputy pulling a yellow tarp from the back of his truck, to use as a cover for the body. The body was laying on it’s left side, as if peacefully at rest.

Hour’s later the county coroner called the sheriff’s direct number. “I can’t find any reason for this woman’s death,” he stated.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” the Sheriff responded. “And I don’t think you’ll ever find a cause.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“She’s been missing nearly 30 years.”

“Bullshit! How can that be? This woman’s 19 or 20 years old, if she’s a day.”

“Look, we’ve run the prints your office sent us three times now. Same result, Marilyn Winap-Denault, born April 5, 1972, went missing July 20, 1991 out by the Lovelock Cave in Pershing.”

“That would make her nearly 46. But…”

“I know…”

“But how? There’s no freezer burns, putrefaction or even mummification. There’s not a mark on her body.”

“If I had the answer to that, we’d be a step closer to solving this thing – but so far I haven’t an explanation. Hell, we can’t even find her next of kin at the moment.”

“So what next?”

“Right now, we’re waiting to see if Pershing County has any files remaining on the case. If they do, we’ll go from there.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We’re gonna have to start from scratch.”

“Something else that’s weird is her stomach content…”

“Yeah?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she had fried chicken, potato salad and chips for lunch today along with some beer.”

“Don’t know what to tell ya, other than go home, eat, relax and we’ll get back at it come tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah,” the Coroner said, “With a strange case like this, that’ll be easier said than done.”

“I know what you mean,” the Sheriff replied. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” responded the Coroner as he hung up. He looked at the body laying on his autopsy table and mindlessly asked her, “Where in the hell have you been for the 27-years?”

 My cousin Autumn and I share the enjoyment of researching our family’s history. She recently sent me a picture of my great uncle, Vince Darby (born in 1910) from his time in the U.S. Navy, during World War II. I need to find out more information about his service. The second is my great aunt Melzine, Vince’s wife (born in 1912.)  She’s a Childress/Timmons/Darby and makes a pretty cute farm girl during the Great Depression. The final picture is of the two of them together, date unknown.

“Reno, Nev. (AP) — The remains of 38-year-old Almarinda deOliveria have has been found. She disappeared in January. Authorities have said there was no evidence of foul play.”

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said deOliveria body was located Rose Creek Canyon, close to where her cell phone was found. Two hunters, out scouting for deer, found her remains and alerted authorities.

Prior to her disappearance, her mother passed away following a lengthy illness. That and the failure of a years-long spiritual retreat left her despondent. It’s believed by both the family and the Washoe County medical examiners office, that she took her own life.

They couldn’t explain why they hadn’t been able to locate her when she first went missing other than to have a spokesperson say, “The landscape can make it very difficult to spot a person either from the air or the ground. In the case of Almarinda, she was located between to large rock outcroppings and was clothed in a gray-colored blanket, obscuring her from view.”

Meanwhile, two file boxes containing the investigative notes on the disappearance of Marilyn Winap-Denault remain housed in the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office’s evidence locker. The case remains open.

Long since retired, the younger of the two detectives recently told a news reporter, “It’s the one case we could never solve. And honestly, I don’t think I’ll live long enough to learn what happened to Marilyn. I guess you can say that her vanishing waits for the desert to give up its long held secret.”

Lights can still be seen after dark and wild laughter and crying can be heard echoing through out the area surrounding Lovelock Cave at all times of the day. And the local Paiute-Shonsone tribes people continue to avoid the area at night.

As Jim and Susie and the other three conspirators raced back to the village, other’s also in on the killing, torched the medicine woman’s wickiup, her clothes and all her belongings so nobody in the tribe could use them. Her rattles, eagle feathers, shells, stones, animal skins and medicinal herbs all went up in smoke and by doing so, Winnescheika ghost could not return, seeking vengeance on the tribe.

They might have gotten away with it, but there was a witness to the execution. Winnescheika’s twelve year old niece, Lizzie Cinnibar Winap, who had followed her aunt to Jim’s camp.

She was peeking through a curtain when she saw her aunt nearly decapitated. She was so stunned and fearful, that she fled to the sagebrush and stayed there until late the next morning.

Eventually news of the killing reached Deputy F. M. Fellows, the Lovelock area’s only lawman and because none of those involved, including Winnescheika, were reservation Indians, the Indian Affairs Bureau took no interest in the killing one way or the other. It was left up to Fellows to send a wagon and several men out to retrieve Winnescheika’s body and arrest Jim, Susie, Jennie and the fourth woman.

After receiving the report of the Lovelock coroner the four accused murderers were bound over to the Grand Jury in Winnemucca. Three weeks later, on May 24, the same jury found sufficient evidence to bring Jim, Susie and Jennie to trial, but because she appeared in court with a baby at her breast, charges were never filed against the fourth woman in the case.

During the trial, the principal witness, an older Paiute who claimed to be a judge among his people, said that it had always been the custom among his people to ferret out witches and put them to death. Such persons, he said, often assumed the guise of a medicine man or woman and inevitably revealed themselves when their patients began to die and that in such a case it fell to the friends and relatives of her victims to kill her and dispose of the body.

He further stated that his grandfather told him that in years past the Indians, like the whites, burned supposed witches at the stake as well as stoned them to death on occasion.

When brought to the witness stand, all three of the defendants claimed that they thought their act was for the good of the tribe and professed an inability to under stand why they were being held in the white man’s jail. The jury met in the afternoon and returned a verdict of second-degree murder within an hour, a sign that although the killing was clearly premeditated, there were mitigating circumstances which precluded a “first-degree verdict which would have surely meant hanging at worst or a life sentence at best.

Two days later Judge Cheney sentenced the trio to ten years in the state prison, with their sentences beginning on June 22, 1891. Within months after their incarceration, Chief Naches and Captain Dave of the Pyramid Lake Reservation were petitioning Nevada Governor Roswell Keyes Colcord for their release.

They were later joined in the appeal by Paiute Chief Johnson Sides, the famous ‘United States Peacemaker,’ who in referring to witches said, “We kill ’em, now for the same reason the white the man killed ’em long ago.”

When the State Board of Pardons met the following year, they released the three on July 14, one year and 21 days from the commencement of their sentences. Winnescheika’s death would be the last execution of a witch in the United States.

With the help of a couple of tribal officers, the search for the man on the opposite side of the gap was made. ‘Shoshoni Johnny’ Hansen was an 83-year-old Paiute who lived by himself and often could be seen wandering the desert in the company of his dog.

“So, did you see anything on that day?”

“I see lots of things. Anything in particular?”

“The day the two women disappeared.”

“Yes. I saw them, but I did not make them disappear.”

“What can you tell us about what you saw.”

“I saw a red car with four girls in it. When it left there were only two girls in the car.”

“Didn’t that seem strange to you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I figgered the Nimerigar got the other two.”

“Nimerigar?”

“Yes. The little people. Bad. Don’t like humans and will eat them, both Whites and Indians.”

“Did you see these little people?”

“No, I’ve never seen them. I have a dog. They do not like dogs. Afraid of dogs.”

“So, what about the young man who came out to the caves yesterday, did you see him?”

“Yes. Nice motorbike. Always wanted one. Looks like fun to ride.”

“Did you watch him.”

“Watched him until he called out to me. I left because I do not want him calling the Nimerigar’s attention to me. Stupid boy.”

“Anything else that you can tell us?”

“About that day when girls go missing, I saw lights floating in the sky above the caves early in the morning, before sun. I also heard Winnescheika screaming and crying. Came home immediately.”

“Can you describe the lights?”

“Blue. Like a hot fire on a torch, without torch, that move back and forth and up and down. I have seen them before. I always return home when I see them.”

“And you said you heard a scream?”

“Not jus’ a scream – Winnescheika.”

“Winnescheika?”

“A witch. She’s believed to be dead by many, but White man dug her up after her death and her ghost walks the desert not far from where she was buried. If it is the Nimerigar who stole young girl, they have already eaten her, bones too. If it is Winnescheika, her ghost will return her when it is finish using her. Could be long time.”

The detectives looked at each other quickly. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Hansen.”

“You are welcome. Come by again. I enjoyed the visit.”

Once back in the car, “I think the old chief’s cheese has slid off his cracker.” The pair laughed at the remark.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) – Search for missing Reno woman resumes after jewelry found. Woman’s husband being held for questioning, possible suspect in disappearance.”

Marilyn’s husband of two-years, Robert Denault was beside himself. He had asked authorities several times if he could help in the search. Each time was met with a resounding “no.”

Now that the search had been suspended, Robert felt he didn’t need to ask permission and instead hopped on his motorcycle and sped his way to the rock outcrops. “They’re bigger than I imagined,” he said as he pulled his helmet from his head.

He wandered up and down the face of the sandy bowl that lay between the many rocks and caves. Using a flashlight, Robert slowly worked his way into the labyrinth of caves that had been ‘discovered’ only 80-years ago by so-called ‘bat guano miners.’

The caves interiors held a dank coolness and a slightly putrefied odor of rotted bat feces. Still he pushed on until he found he could go further, besides by then the batteries in his flashlight had begun to fade, taking with it the light Robert needed to see by.

Once back in the daylight, Robert decided to hike up to the crest of the formation. He hoped to be able to see something, anything really, that might serve as a clue to the disappearance of Marilyn.

Slowly he made his way up between the boulders and outcroppings to the peak of the formation. Looking down he saw nothing but a rock and sage strewn landscape.

However as he looked across the gap between formations, about half a mile away, he saw the figure of a man accompanied by a dog, looking back at him.

“Hey!” Robert shouted as the man turned and disappeared below the ridge-line.

Angered that he’d been ignored, Robert walked over the edge and looked down, hoping to find a quicker way off the rocky formation. There wasn’t, however he did catch a metallic glint between the crags below.

Slowly he lowered himself down to where he’d seen the refection of metal. Finally, he had to lay on his stomach and reach into a fissure in a rock to retrieve the item.

The crack between the fractured rock grew tighter the further he forced his hand and arm into it. Robert nearly gave up, but with a final effort, he thrust his arm clear up to his shoulder and wiggled whatever it was onto his middle finger, pulled it out of the recess in the rock.

Instantly he recognized it, “Marilyn’s watch!” one he’d given her the Christmas before. It had stopped working, the hands pointing to noontime.

Robert hurried down the back side of the cave system. In his rush, he tripped and fell, scraping up his elbow and skinning face.

Knowing he’d never catch up with the man on hill, Robert quickly got on his motorcycle and sped back to Interstate 80, into Lovelock and to the sheriff’s office. There he asked to see the detectives working on his missing wife’s case.

He was not met with happiness. “What the hell were you doing out there?” the older one shouted at Robert. “You were told to stay away!”

“I know,” Robert returned, “But you’ve call off the search, so figured it would be okay for me to go have a look around for myself. Besides,” pointing at Marilyn’s watch, “you missed evidence out there that…”

“Or you planted it!” the detective pointed out. “What – were you out there re-hiding Marilyn’s body – I mean you’re covered in dirt and all scratched up?”

“What? You think I had something to do with her disappearance and now you’re saying I killed her?”

“That’s what it looks like from this side of the table,” the younger detective shot back.

“Well, I didn’t,” Robert responded. “Plus I saw a man standing the ridge across from me. He was watching me and when I hollered at him, he turned and walked down the backside of the hill.”

The two detectives looked at one another. “Do you think he saw you?”

“I know he did.”

The older detective looked at the younger one and said, “We need to find out who that was. That makes three unknown people in this case.”

As they left the interrogation room, the younger detective told the officer outside the door, “Lock him up.”

Bungy Jim and his wife Paiute Susie, both former patients of Winnescheika’s, were directed to execute the suspected witch. On April 30, 1891, Paiute Susie, laying in her campoodie, pretended to be sick and Winnescheika responded to her late night call for her help.

When she arrived she found Susie in great distress attended by Jim and three Paiute women including Jennie Messa. As she bent over to make her examination Susie called to Jennie, “Strike her now!”

Jennie charged, drawing an ax from beneath a blanket she held, and swung it at Winnescheika’s head. The fatal blow nearly chopped her head in two and as she fell in a rush of blood and brains, a second blow was leveled.

The glancing blow bounced off the side of her head, nearly severing Winnescheika’s ear. Bungy Jim stepped in and finished the job by pulling out a knife and slitting her throat while dragging her body into the yard so the blood could drain off into the soil and not further stain the inside of the wickiup.

“Go get the horses and hitch up the wagon,” Paiute Susie ordered Bungy Jim.

Once he left, the four women hacked Winnescheika’s body into several pieces and stuffed them into barley bags to prevent her spirit from returning to the place of her death. Then they loaded the grisly cargo onto the buckboard and with blood seeping through cracks in the bed of the wagon, headed for Medicine Rock, slightly north of Leonard Rockshelter, some ten miles southeast of the town.

There, they buried the pieces of her body in a five foot deep grave, then hurried back to their village before the sun came up. However, the suspected witch would not stay in the ground for long.

“Lovelock, Nev. (AP) – One woman found, second remains missing. Authorities call off search after no further evidence located. Investigators are seeking information from public about motorcyclist’s seen in area.”

Three days later, with no more signs of either women found, the search was called off. The disappearance, though considered extremely suspicious, was officially listed as a ‘Missing Persons’ case.

Ten days after the two women disappeared, a woman called the Lovelock police station, “A girl jus’ came walking out of the desert, naked, crying and terribly sun burnt.”

The dispatcher told her to keep the girl safe, that both a sheriff’s deputy and an ambulance were en route. It took nearly twenty minutes for the deputy to arrive, with the ambulance pulling onto the long dirt road two minutes later.

“What’s your name?” the deputy asked.

“Lori.”

“We’ve been looking for you, Lori.”

“Why?”

“You were reported missing by your friends.”

“Where are they? Are they okay?”

“One is still missing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and Marilyn were reported missing by your two friends.”

“Marilyn’s missing?”

“Yes,” the deputy answered as the paramedics helped her to a stretcher, loading it into the waiting ambulance. The deputy took note of the confused look on the woman’s face as the door to the vehicle closed.

The deputy then turned his attention to the woman who had made the call. “Where did she come from?”

“Over there,” she pointed.

“Did she say anything to you?”

“Not really. She wanted some water, which I gave her. I asked what happened, but she said she couldn’t remember.”

“Thank you ma’am. You did the right thing.”

He walked over to the area where the woman said Lori had appeared, but couldn’t find a single footstep. As he got in his car to leave, he wondered if he should include that information in his report or pretend like he never looked in the first place.

The two original detectives were quickly notified that one of the missing women had been found. They rushed over to the county hospital with the hopes of interviewing her while everything was fresh in her mind.

“She’s going to be okay,” the doctor told them as he ushered the pair into the private room they’d placed Lori in.  With window curtains drawn nearly closed, the woman lay on her back, covered only by a single sheet, her right arm pierced with the needle that held the tubing in which fluid from a clear plastic bag flowed.

“I know this is a difficult time,” one of the detectives said, “But we need to understand what happened to you.”

“I don’t know,” Lori answered, “I was asleep, but can’t recall any thing after that.”

“Nothing? How about a feeling, a sound, maybe an odor or smell?”

She laid there and thought for minute, closing her eye’s as if to see backward, into her memory, “A deep growl. I remember a deep growl. Also the smell of rotten eggs. Does that help?”

“Possibly. How about Marilyn? Do you remember what happened to her?”

“No. I was asleep and she was next to me on the blanket. That’s all I can remember.”

“Okay,” said the doctor, “That’s enough. She needs to rest.”

“Here’s my phone number, call me if you remember something, anything more. Okay?”

“Thank you,” she said as they left the room.

Shortly after sunset, the area came alive with law enforcement from various agencies throughout the northern part of Nevada. The rock formation was laced with caves and hollows that needed to be explored.

As the hours passed, April and Janice sat in separate interview rooms at the county lock-up repeating their answers to questions that detectives had repeated a dozen times. It was early morning when they were released only to learn that neither of their friends had been located.

“So what about those two bikers the women say they saw?” the younger of the two detectives asked.

The older one sipped his half-cold, stale coffee and shook his head, “Personally, I think that story’s a bunch of crap – but we won’t be able to prove it one way or the other till we get out there and have a look for ourselves.”

The two wandered out into the parking lot, to an unmarked patrol car and got in. No sooner had the key turned in the ignition than the radio crackled to life, “They found something and want you out at the scene, pronto!”

Minutes later after pulling up to the site and getting out of the car, “So what do you have for us?”

“A tennis shoe,” came the answer

“Do you know for sure it belongs to one of the women?”

“Matches the description of what one of them were reported to be wearing yesterday.”

“Well, we need to verify that. Bag it and give it to me and we’ll head to Reno and see if either of the other two women recognize it.”

“While were here, we should see if we can find those bike tracks.”

“Yeah, let’s head up there and see if we can get our bearings and a lay of the land.”

Leaving the command center, the two detectives climbed to the top of the largest rock at the site. They looked in the direction that the two woman said they saw the motorcycle riders.

The older of the two checked his wristwatch, “Damned watch has stopped.”

“Hmm. Mine’s gone tits-up as well,” stated the younger of the two, adding, “Must be some sort of magnetic field associated with this outcropping.

The distance from the rocks to where the rise in the hillside began to fall away was further than either man thought. However, once there, the two spread out and quickly located two sets of motor bike tire prints in the loose dirt.

“We need someone to take casts up here,” the younger one radioed to the command center below where they stood. Once they pointed out the prints and watched as an officer took pictures, then carefully poured the plaster, they left for their car.

There wasn’t much conversation between the two men during the drive to Reno. Both were lost in their own thoughts of the investigation, besides there would soon be enough talk to fill a book.

“Did you find her?” April asked after assuring the detectives that it was one of the shoes Marilyn had been wearing. Janice sat on the divan beside her, hoping for good news.

“Not yet, but we’re gonna keep looking.”

April broke down, crying more than she already had. Janice, amid her crying, tried her best to comfort her friend.

Considered very beautiful, the dark-haired, dark-eyed 35-year-old woman showed no signs of aging and was reputed to walk so smoothly that her feet seemed never to touch the ground. Winnescheika was a Shoshone medicine woman who settled among the Northern Paiutes of Lovelock in the fall of 1890.

“There is something bad with her,” came the grumblings of tribe members, “She floats as if she were a ghost – or a witch.”

Though many in the tribe swore that no footprint ever followed in her path, her abilities as a doctor soon won the grudging respect of the suspicious desert dwellers and even the Whites of the area, who sometimes sought her out to minister to their ailments. On occasion she was also called upon to treat cattle and horses since the area lacked veterinary services.

All was not well, however; too many of her patients only worsened and died under her care and illness and bad luck soon came to plague the families of those she treated. The same was the case with previously healthy horse whose stablemates had received her care.

Several dropped dead suddenly or stepped in gopher holes at full gallop, splintering a leg, making their destruction a humane necessity. Others responded with uncharacteristic slowness to the sudden appearance of a deadly rattlesnake, were bitten and ended their lives in agony.

Some of the deaths were perhaps understandable, given the remoteness of the area and the primitive treatments subscribed to by the local Indians, and some were probably attributable to mere chance or bad luck, but there were other unexplained occurrences that soon began to cause much unease among tribesmen. And as a medicine woman, Winnescheika knew well the risks associated with her occupation.

Strange lights were reported to be seen in near Winnescheika’s wickiup and eerie, unearthly screams and laughter were often times heard to echo across the sage covered desert. Spring crops also failed that year, hunters returned empty-handed and cows were found drained of milk on many mornings.

Strange stories about Winnescheika’s past soon began to circulate and it was whispered that she was in reality, a witch who used her healing powers only to gain access to victims. Rumor also had it that her treatment had been responsible for the deaths of five babies at a colony near Austin, eight Paiute men and women on the Stillwater Reservation in Churchill County and many horses wherever she resided for any length of time.

It was during the start of spring 1891, that tribal leaders met in secret and decided that Winnescheika must die.