Two weeks into the bootless delivery cause , asearch planeflying over the Grand Canyon made a promising find . drift down the Colorado River below was a small gravy boat , some 140 miles from where Glen and Bessie Hyde hadlast been seen32 days prior on November 18 , 1928 . Spurred by hope , rescuer on the priming coat scrambled down the rocky river bank to the scene .
They found the newlywed ’ scow in perfect experimental condition : It was upright and securely packed with supplies , include Bessie ’s diary . The only affair amiss was that the duo was nowhere in sight , as if they had been enjoy their honeymoon adventure one moment and vanished the next .
The state of the boat made an already strange storey even stranger . People have been disappear in national parks since the system ’s inception , but the Hydes were n’t your typical tourists . Twenty - nine - class - honest-to-goodness Glen was anexperienced river runnerwho had traversed the Salmon and Snake Rivers in Idaho . His 22 - year - sure-enough married woman shared his adventuresome spirit , and they planned to make their first misstep as a married pair a historical feat . Glen aimed to be the fastest soul to journey the length of the Grand Canyon by sauceboat ; Bessie , meanwhile , would become the first cleaning lady to complete the journeying .
But as the uncovering of their scow confirmed , the pair never made it to their destination . Accidental drowning would be the obvious culprit , but without bodies , there was no way to prove their cause of death — or whether they had died at all . In the subsequent decades , a skeletal system , a shooting iron , and a nascence certicate have added more fuel to rumors that the couple ’s fade was n’t an accident .
’Til Death Do Us Part
When Glen and Bessie converge on aboat to Los Angelesin 1927 , they were traveling as passengers rather than navigators . Glen was an Idaho indigene who had lately boat from the Salmon River to the Pacific Ocean in a scow he had build by helping hand . Bessie was abohemianartist , having dabbled in theater and poetry as a scholar . Though she was technically married when she meet Glen , the two feel an instantaneous connexion . They got married in 1928 — a day afterBessie ’s divorcewas finalized .
Their Grand Canyon honeymoon was supposed to be more than a romanticist dangerous undertaking . If it go as they design , it would have set them up for living . Only 45 people had made the full journey by that point , and being thefirst womanto complete it would have made Bessie an overnight celebrity . The Hydes hope to arrive home from their river go to lucrative book mickle and lecture invitations .
The twosome embark in Glen ’s homemade scow from Green River , Utah , on October 20 , with the destination of reaching Needles , California , by other December . The first branch of the trip went swimmingly . They had packed more than enough provisions , and Glen ’s river - razz and boat - building skills stood up to the Colorado River ’s frothy water .
The Hydes get in touch with several people during their travelling , including Emery Kolb , a renowned photographer who owned a studio on the southern flange of the canyon . Kolb was also an experienced boat rider intimate with the river ’s moody nature , and he noted the couple ’s lack of lifejackets . Glen brush him off with a laugh . They were already halfway through their journey , and it had n’t been a trouble for them them so far .
According to later reports , Kolb also noticed concerning behavior from Bessie . She seemed hesitating to return to the urine , either due to exhaustion from the stumble up to that period or concern of the rapid waitress for them . Her new husbandmay havepushed her to continue . They had come so far , after all , and no one wanted to get wind about a couple who ended their Grand Canyon boat tantalise before hit the finish line .
Bessie agreed to campaign on , but she made an eerily prescient input before room the gravy holder . In reply to the outfit Kolb ’s young daughter was wearing , she commented : “ I wonder if I shall ever wear pretty shoe again . ”
Kolb ’s photographer admirer Adolph G. Sutro joined the newlyweds for several miles before they break ways at Hermit Rapid . The turbulent fleck was thelast placethe Hydes were see alert .
Will the Real Bessie Hyde Please Stand Up?
The daybook regain from the gravy boat had entries dated up toNovember 30 , give away that the Hydes had spent another 12 days on the water at least . According to Bessie ’s write up , they had actually been ahead of schedule and made it as far as Diamond Creeka dozen milesfrom where the abandon boat was ultimately found . Nothing in her diary hinted at the slip being cut short .
A thorough lookup of their last known whereabouts turned up nothing , and the moth-eaten case would n’t see any Modern development for decades . Then , in 1971 , a woman bring up Elizabeth Cutler made the story relevant again during a river go of the Grand Canyon . While sitting around thecampfire , she herald to her tour group that she was Bessie Hyde . She allege to have stabbed and killed her husband during a wrangle and had been hold up in secret ever since .
Somespeculatethat Cutler had consist and spun the tale as a japery or a bid for attention . She later deny ever claim to be Bessie — whentracked downby a newsman , she said she had never even heard of the Hydes . But the hypothesis that Bessie had made it out of the canon animated would n’t give-up the ghost . When fabled Grand Canyon river templet Georgie Clarke pass away in 1992 , some of the effect she left behind led some people to question her on-key identity . Among her possession were a shooting iron , the Hydes ’ marriage certificate , and a birth certificate list her real name as Bessie DeRoss . The coincidences were strange , but because Clarke ’s former life waswell - documented , they were n’t strong enough to reopen the case .
The theme that Glen was murdered also persist — though theoretician did n’t always check on who the killer was . In 1977 , six years after the first false Bessie appeared , a underframe was discovered in Emery Kolb ’s garage in his studio on the Grand Canyon ’s southerly flange . It had belonged to a man in his twenties who match Glen ’s pinnacle and build . But unlike Glen , the nameless victim ’s cause of death was n’t a mystery — he was found with abullet holein his skull .
Kolb had die the former December , so he was unable to defend himself against accusations that he ’d murdered Glen Hyde and concord onto his body for 50 geezerhood . His name was formally take in in 2008 , thanks to a disastrous - and - white photography collection that the Word of a former Mungo Park fire warden had donate to the Grand Canyon Museum . Several picture present a underframe resembling the bones found on Emery Kolb ’s dimension , and a museum technician connect the remains to reports of an unknown man who ’d died from an on the face of it self - bring down gunfire injury to the head in 1933 . Retired Grand Canyon National Park criminal police detective Joe Sumner heard about the photo , and after comparing them to the Kolb skeleton , he corroborate they were a mate .
How the bone end up in the photographer ’s garage was a greater mystery . Sumner determine that Kolb had answer as a county coroner jury spokesperson for Grand Canyon , and he in all likelihood adopt the remains follow the destruction inquest . It ’s still unclear why he put in them in his service department up to his dying , but whatever the intellect , the Hydes were n’t affect .
Without a Trace
Now , closely a C since the Hydes were last get word , the reason they vanished remains a mystery . But the most likely explanation for their fade does n’t regard murder or mystical identities .
The couple was braving ill-famed water without spirit preservers — a big enough rapid could have easily swept them overboard while will their tied - down supplies integral . The bottom of the Grand Canyon was also much less trafficked and developed in the twenties than it is today . That , combined with the brawny waters of the Colorado River , would have made it wanton for two bodies to go away without a trace .
Though not as dramatic as the legend , this scenario is still unsettling . The National Park Service has recordeddozens of unsolved lacking personcases dating back to the 1950s , and some distrust there arehundreds morethat are n’t on record . This shows how easy it is to get fall behind within the 84 million acres of preserve wilderness that make up the parks system . Beyond the maintain trails and coterie of a national park , a vacation with make love 1 can quickly become a battle to survive .
