Jul 14, 2026 · 33 min · 12 segments
When a man’s body is found in a national park in Ohio with an execution-style gunshot wound to the head, authorities are quick to zero in on a female suspect. But the case is far from simple. View…
[gentle music] Shortly after 11:30 in the morning on Saturday, March 6th, 2021, a couple hiking in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio heard what they believed was a gunshot.
[gunshot fires] The specific area they were hiking in was called the Terra Vista Natural Study Area, which from what I saw on Google Maps is near the Cuyahoga River, and it's adjacent to two roadways that have stores, homes, and even businesses on them.
But naturally, like I would be, when you hear a gunshot in the woods, you get spooked, which was the case for this couple.
They were concerned enough by the sound that they decided to get out of the area and headed back to where they'd parked their car.
From reading the court records in this case, it doesn't appear that they initially reported the gunshot to authorities or really did anything other than leave.
But three days later, around 11:00 AM on Tuesday, March 9th, a group of hikers walking in that same area came across a man's body near an old cemetery in the woods, and they immediately could tell that the guy was dead because he had a gunshot wound to his head.
Some news coverage states the victim had been there at least a few days, so I don't know if that means decomposition had begun to set in or what.
Now, because the body was found on federal land, the FBI became the lead investigating agency on the case, but that didn't happen until the following morning, March 10th.
Initially, it was officers from Valley View Police Department who'd responded to the scene, and then eventually resources and personnel from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and National Park Services investigative branch got involved.
From the jump, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was a homicide, so investigators closed the trail and began combing the crime scene for clues.
Inside the victim's pocket, authorities found an ID for a 31-year-old man named Matthew Dunmeyer, and it was confirmed right then and there he was the person who'd been shot.
Other than his body, the dark clothes and shoes he was wearing, there wasn't much else in terms of physical evidence.
However, there was a plastic water bottle next to his body that investigators seized.
But in order to learn more about Matthew and what had happened to him, they needed a full autopsy to be done.
So at some point that day, they transported the victim to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's office, where his cause of death was officially determined to be a single nine millimeter gunshot wound to the back of his head.
[gentle music] Shortly after 11:30 in the morning on Saturday, March 6th, 2021, a couple hiking in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio heard what they believed was a gunshot.
[gunshot fires] The specific area they were hiking in was called the Terra Vista Natural Study Area, which from what I saw on Google Maps is near the Cuyahoga River, and it's adjacent to two roadways that have stores, homes, and even businesses on them.
But naturally, like I would be, when you hear a gunshot in the woods, you get spooked, which was the case for this couple.
They were concerned enough by the sound that they decided to get out of the area and headed back to where they'd parked their car.
From reading the court records in this case, it doesn't appear that they initially reported the gunshot to authorities or really did anything other than leave.
But three days later, around 11:00 AM on Tuesday, March 9th, a group of hikers walking in that same area came across a man's body near an old cemetery in the woods, and they immediately could tell that the guy was dead because he had a gunshot wound to his head.
Some news coverage states the victim had been there at least a few days, so I don't know if that means decomposition had begun to set in or what.
Now, because the body was found on federal land, the FBI became the lead investigating agency on the case, but that didn't happen until the following morning, March 10th.
Initially, it was officers from Valley View Police Department who'd responded to the scene, and then eventually resources and personnel from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and National Park Services investigative branch got involved.
From the jump, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was a homicide, so investigators closed the trail and began combing the crime scene for clues.
Inside the victim's pocket, authorities found an ID for a 31-year-old man named Matthew Dunmeyer, and it was confirmed right then and there he was the person who'd been shot.
Other than his body, the dark clothes and shoes he was wearing, there wasn't much else in terms of physical evidence.
However, there was a plastic water bottle next to his body that investigators seized.
But in order to learn more about Matthew and what had happened to him, they needed a full autopsy to be done.
So at some point that day, they transported the victim to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's office, where his cause of death was officially determined to be a single nine millimeter gunshot wound to the back of his head.
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