'When you find my body, please call my husband and daughter’: hiker's final message
A journal holds the mystery of a hiker's 26 day ordeal after she went missing in the American wilderness two years before her body was found.
Geraldine Largay, from Brentwood, kept a journal after getting lost on the Appalachian Trail in Maine, which was discovered along with the 66-year-old's skeletal remains last September.
On a torn out page dated August 6 2013, the woman left a heartbreaking note to whoever would find her body, begging them to notify her family, the Boston Globe reported.
“When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote 26 days after she lost the trail when she relieved herself.
“It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me - no matter how many years from now.
“Please find it in your heart to mail the contents of this bag to one of them.”
A bag was found with her remains, with her journal and mobile phone inside.
The Maine Warden Service reported Ms Largay tried to send text messages to her husband after becoming lost, but due to poor reception the messages never went through.
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The service concluded she went in search of higher ground to try to get better phone signal before making camp on a raised knoll.
Despite the Maine Warden Service launching one of the largest search operations in its history, she was not found until October 16, 2015 when two surveyors doing environmental work stumbled upon her campsite by accident.
Ms Largay’s remains were eventually found on densely forested property owned by the US Navy, almost five kilometres from where she was last seen.
“After all of the communication and information from everyone involved including the Medical Examiner’s Office, Navy, and the Maine Attorney General’s Office, these findings are conclusive in that no foul play was involved and that Gerry simply made a wrong turn shortly after crossing Orbeton Stream,” her family said in a statement after her remains were found.
“We wish to thank all of those who gave their time and prayers while searching for our wife, sister, mother, and grandmother.
“We especially would like to thank the entire Maine Warden Service for their dedication to this case.
“It became apparent from day one that this was personal to them and they would not rest until Gerry was found.
“Now that we know her death was an accident, we again ask all media for the respect of our privacy as we continue our grieving process with this new chapter of closure.”
