Wild Crime

In 1983, visitors to Yosemite National Park found a decaying human hand in Summit Meadow. Investigators Don Coelho and Kim Tucker work for months but find no clues, no missing person reports or other remains. Then suddenly, they learn Henry Lee Lucas, a Texas serial killer, is saying he killed victims in a California national park. As Lucas claims more and more murders, Don and Kim begin looking at him for their case and prepare to meet and interview Lucas in person.

Serial killer Henry Lee Lucas tells Don and Kim he strangled a female hitchhiker in Yosemite. Details appear to match the death in Summit Meadow, and they find evidence Lucas described. But after months with no progress on the investigation, Kim is reassigned, and with no new leads, the case grows cold. Don eventually takes a new job, and with no victim identity or new evidence, Lucas won't be prosecuted. Lucas had confessed to hundreds of murders, but then scores of his confessions were proven false, adding more doubt. Kim moves on and has twins, a boy and a girl. With no leads, the Summit Meadow case is at a standstill.

Four years after the Summit Meadow case went cold, hikers found a human skull. There's no proof it's related to the hand discovered earlier, but it allows for a facial reconstruction that shows what Jane Doe may have looked like. But that generates no leads. Decades pass; Kim Tucker's son Cullen is now an investigator and is assigned the case. Using new DNA science after almost 40 years, Jane Doe is finally identified! Now Cullen wonders how did she end up dead in Yosemite — and given it was likely murder, who did it?

We meet Jane Doe's childhood friends and find out about her early life. After her brother's suicide, she began a spiritual quest and lived near Yosemite in a so-called cult. There she may have crossed paths with two other men who may have been involved in her death. Investigators name their most likely perpetrator.