The Gaspé Murders

It's early July, and two families in the US state of Pennsylvania are waiting for news of their loved ones from the remote wilderness in Quebec.

Nearly a month has passed since forty-five-year-old pipe fitter Eugene Lindsey left on a hunting trip with his seventeen-year-old son, Richard, who'd just graduated from high school.

The trip was something of a graduation present, and the father and son had been joined by their nineteen-year-old family friend, Fred Klar.

The Lindsey and Klar families both live near Hollidaysburg, a small community of a few thousand people about two hours' drive east of Pittsburgh.

They knew that their three hunters had driven about 1,600 kilometers northeast across the US-Canada border and up to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, a long finger of land that juts out where the Saint Lawrence River opens out toward the Atlantic Ocean, just north of New Brunswick.

The Gaspé Peninsula is a stunning coastal region known for its dramatic mountains that meet the sea, an isolated region of thick forests, mountains, and rough logging roads, the very definition of the wilderness, the perfect place for hunting.

The journey would have taken roughly two full days in Eugene's green pickup truck, and they did not plan to stop.

The truck had a rudimentary bed in the back of it so that one person could sleep while the others took turns driving.

Their families in Pennsylvania knew at least that they'd successfully made it to the village of Gaspé.

They'd received a postcard from seventeen-year-old Richard mailed from the village.

He said they planned to head into the forest following the Saint John River.

They would have a ten-day adventure hunting black bear, and then they would drive the two days back to Pennsylvania.

That was early June of 1953.

When the trio didn't return home on time, their families weren't especially concerned at first.

Eugene is an experienced hunter, and he's been known to extend his trips before.

Communication from the wilderness is limited, and it wasn't the first time they'd been to the area.

Eugene knew there was good basic shelter there, a series of four old camps with wooden cabins once used by lumberjacks.

There were any number of reasons why the hunters might be delayed.

Their families wait and hope they'll hear from them soon.

But the days and weeks pass with no word.

By July the fifth, it's been a month since they left on a ten-day hunting trip, and their families can no longer ignore the possibility that something has gone wrong.

They contact police in the village of Gaspé and report them missing.

Police send out search parties to see if they can find the American hunters.

The Gaspé Peninsula is a large area of land roughly the size of Vancouver Island, but it has a relatively small population, only about 115,000 residents, and they mostly live near the coast because the rugged interior has limited farmland.

The searchers have a pretty good idea where the missing hunters might be because they'd told their families that they planned to travel the Saint John River, a waterway that flows east into Gaspé Bay.