Everett+Ruess+Disappearance+Solved?


 * The Latest News On The Disappearance Of Everett Ruess**

The magazine, [|National Geographic Adventure] ran and article in their April/ May 2009 issue entitled “[|Finding Everett Ruess] ”. In it the author David Roberts recounts a tale told by an ailing Navajo woman named Daisy, to her younger brother Denny. Her grandfather Aneth told her the story when she was much younger. It was about a crime he witnessed back in the 1930’s. He told her that he had seen the murder of a white man in the bottom of Chinle Wash. He said the man was traveling with two Burros, and that his killers were Utes. According to the story, after the Utes had stolen the victims’ possessions and fled the scene, the Aneth buried the body in a crevice above the wash on Comb Ridge.

Denny became interested in finding the grave, and spent the next couple of weeks searching for it. When he found what he thought to be the actual burial, he brought a local friend out to see it. He also contacted the F.B.I. Denny's friend Vaughn, happened to be a wilderness guide, and knew the story of Everett Ruess very well. He also happened to know that David Roberts had written a previous article on Ruess, so he contacted him, and this is how the latest article came about. Up to this point, Denny had never heard of Everett Ruess.

Before the F.B.I. arrived, Denny brought a photographer to the site, and he took many [|photographs of the scene]. He photographed a stirrup, pieces of leather, and a saddle frame outside of the burial, and a belt inside of it. He also captured some images of the partially buried skeleton.

When Roberts finally arrived to see the site, he reportedly found the burial in a completely different condition than the photographs. Denny told him that the F.B.I. investigators and the county sheriff had put all of the items inside the crack, and had even tried to lift up the skull. Afterwards they covered it all with rocks.

The next visit to the site was with an archaeologist from the Cultural Resource Compliance section of the Navajo Nation. Based on his findings he believed the victim was in his mid twenties, and that the burial didn’t appear to be Navajo. On their next visit they found a 1912 dime, and retrieved two molars. With the teeth, they could get a DNA sample, and compare it to the DNA of Everett’s brother, Waldo.

The molars were sent to Family Tree DNA in Texas, and the results came back less than positive. The [|DNA results] from the teeth did not match that in the hair strands from Everett’s brother. However, the results reportedly confirmed that the victim was not Native American. So the archeologists returned to the site to do a complete excavation. They removed many more pieces of the skeleton, as well as some colored beads, and a button that read “Mountaineer X”. The button turned out to be manufactured prior to 1936.

Forensic Anthropologists from the University of Colorado examined the skeletal remains and concluded that the victim was male, between 19-22 years of age, and was approximately 5 feet 8 inches tall. As they reconstructed the remains of the jawbone, they compared it to old photographs of Ruess taken by Dorothea Lange in 1933. Their conclusions seemed to point towards the remains being that of Everett Ruess.

Works Cited:

Lange, Dorothea. “Everett Ruess with photographic superimposition of skeletal remains by Paul Sandberg”. Photograph. //New York Times//. April 30th 2009. <[]> Lange, Dorothea. “Everett Ruess With Hat”. Photograph. //Utah NOW//. 05/07/2009. 12/07/2009. <[]>

Roberts, David. “Finding Everett Ruess”. //National Geographic Adventure//. April 2009. Pgs. 74-81+.

Roberts, David. “Finding Everett Ruess”. //National Geographic Adventure//. April 2009. 12/07/2009. <[]>