In October 2016, five college friends—Kayla Dawson, Brittany Cole, Amber Hutchinson, Jenna Walsh, and Taylor Moss—set out for a weekend camping trip in the Cherokee National Forest.

They shared selfies from Kayla’s black Jeep, laughing at the idea of a digital detox amid the wilderness.

By Monday, they never returned.

Their campsite was found pristine: sleeping bags rolled, food untouched, no signs of struggle.

The Jeep was gone.

There were no tracks, no clues.

Sheriff Wade Cooper, who knew three of the families personally, launched a massive search, but the forest seemed to have swallowed the young women whole.

Six months later, the case went cold.

Families were left with unbearable uncertainty, each day stretching into years without answers.

It wasn’t until October 2021 that a breakthrough occurred.

Hikers stumbled upon an overgrown logging road, barely visible behind a fallen oak, leading to a decaying house that seemed to have sprouted from the earth itself.

Its gray wood siding was blackened by dirt, the roof half-collapsed, and parked outside, rotting under leaves and bird droppings, was Kayla’s Jeep.

On the wall, painted in bright red letters, a warning read: “There is nothing in this house worth dying for.

Stay out or be carried out.”

Matt and Deb Pollson, the hikers who discovered the house, initially assumed it was a prank, yet the Jeep told a different story.

The license plate was covered in grime, the registration sticker dated 2016.

Matt peered through the broken window, and there, on a rusted table, lay a set of keys with a sunrise keychain—a graduation gift Cooper himself had given Kayla years earlier.

This was the evidence everyone had been looking for.

Sheriff Cooper called the FBI, and within hours, agents transformed the house into a crime scene.

The front door opened with a push; the lock had long been broken.

The main floor revealed a disturbing, almost ritualistic arrangement: five purses lined on a shelf, five cell phones on the mantle, neatly folded clothing, hiking boots aligned by size.

But it was the basement that stunned investigators.

The reinforced steel door, recently installed but rusted over time, locked from the outside.

The wooden frame was scratched with fingernail marks at different heights, some showing traces of dried blood.

Carved into the frame in distinct handwriting were the names of the five girls.

Inside, the basement was divided into two rooms.

The first contained sleeping bags, buckets, empty water bottles, and walls covered with charcoal marks—calendar dates, prayers, and pleas to God.

Day 43 was written in one corner.

Another note near the floor read, “Mom, I’m sorry.”

The second room was stark and chilling.

A single chair, bolted to the floor, had restraints attached to the arms.

A drain was set into the concrete beneath it.

The walls were untouched, too far from the chair to reach, suggesting that victims were moved there individually.

The DNA confirmed all five girls had been present in the house, and hair samples indicated they had stayed for at least two to three months.

Ryan Dawson, Kayla’s brother, arrived at the scene in a construction truck, his hands shaking as he confronted the evidence.

His sister had been held here.

The bodies had not yet been found, but the keychain and the purses made it undeniable.

Agents photographed every inch, documenting a place that had served as a prison.

The journal hidden under the floorboards, written not by the girls but by someone chronicling their captivity, confirmed what the evidence suggested: this was a planned, systematic operation, executed by someone local.

The entries began just three days after the girls vanished, in mid-October 2016.

They detailed how the girls were adapting to captivity, how Kayla resisted the most, Brittany cried, Amber prayed, Jenna tried to negotiate, and Taylor remained silent.

By November, the journal described that one girl at a time was moved to a secondary room, “important for conditioning,” with Kayla and others observing.

The writer meticulously documented punishments, feedings, and interactions, each entry precise, clinical, horrifying in its normalcy.

A critical clue emerged from one entry dated November 15th: the captor mentioned seeing Sheriff Cooper’s search team two miles away.

The house was on family property, long believed burned in 1978, but the property had remained hidden off the grid for decades.

Cooper realized that the perpetrator was someone from the community—someone who had assisted in searches, comforted grieving families, and remained above suspicion.

Rivera, the FBI agent leading the investigation, cross-referenced property and DMV records, narrowing potential suspects to four families who had owned land in the area since the 1940s.

One name stood out: Dale Hutchkins.

He was known in the community, lived off the grid, and had a son, Tommy, who had died in a “hunting accident” in 2020.

Rivera discovered that Tommy had ordered paint matching the red used in the warning message, suggesting he intended to mark or reveal the house’s existence.

But the paint was applied after his death, implicating Dale in preserving the secret.

Further investigation into Tommy’s life revealed a harrowing story of complicity and guilt.

Hidden in his apartment, Rivera and her team found a flip phone with unsent messages to the FBI tip line, warning about the Hutchkins property.

Tommy had tried to expose the truth in October 2020, weeks before his death in November.

Meanwhile, a burned trailer on the outskirts of town had been reported by an anonymous caller; inside were the charred remains of a female, possibly Brittany Cole, though DNA could not be recovered.

The sequence of events, pieced together from journals, property records, and forensic evidence, revealed that Tommy had been forced to assist his father.

He had maintained the captives, created false leads to misdirect searches, and attempted to protect Brittany after the other four girls were killed.

Between 2017 and 2020, he lived with the secret, organizing patterns of absence and reported sightings to divert attention.

His death effectively silenced the last potential witness.

Ground-penetrating radar behind the house revealed five anomalies consistent with graves.

When the families dug, they found four bodies, confirming the survival of Brittany Cole at least temporarily.

The final journal entries and hidden notes in the house suggested that Brittany had been separated from the others in December 2016 and placed under Tommy’s care.

A line in the journal, in different ink and dated October 2020, indicated she had told Tommy the truth about the crimes, putting her in imminent danger from Dale.

Further evidence confirmed the horrifying nature of the captor’s control.

Bullet holes, patched walls, blood spatter patterns, overturned furniture, and supplies in the attic indicated long-term planning.

This was not a temporary abduction.

The girls had been imprisoned, moved, disciplined, and in some cases killed in a carefully orchestrated cycle of abuse.

The entire community had unknowingly aided the perpetrator by accepting his outwardly helpful presence during searches and investigations.

Ryan Dawson, standing outside Kayla’s Jeep, realized the depth of the betrayal: Dale Hutchkins had not only taken the lives of these young women but had watched the town grieve, his son complicit under duress, until the moment he tried to expose the truth.

The painted message on the house was less a warning to intruders than a confession and a calculated effort to maintain secrecy.

The FBI’s investigation of Tommy’s records, combined with a review of all previous searches, painted a picture of methodical manipulation.

Gas receipts from October 2016, overlooked at the time, revealed purchases directly linked to the abduction.

Security footage had been overwritten, but fingerprints and forensic analysis now provided partial verification of Tommy’s presence at key locations.

His careful creation of false leads, his absences, and his eventual efforts to report the crime anonymously demonstrated the complex web of coercion and survival he had endured.

The families, devastated by the discoveries, now faced a mix of grief and hope.

Four daughters’ bodies were found, confirming years of worst fears.

But Brittany Cole’s survival, albeit uncertain, meant that someone may still be out there with knowledge of Dale Hutchkins’ crimes.

The FBI began a renewed search, combing through rural properties and following leads from Tommy’s hidden communications.

Every piece of evidence suggested that Dale, having maintained control for decades, remained a dangerous figure.

The Cherokee National Forest, once a place of laughter and friendship for the five college students, had become the backdrop for an elaborate horror.

Families who had lived in limbo for five years now knew the truth: their children had been taken, imprisoned, and in some cases killed by someone they had trusted.

The complicity of a community figure, combined with the coerced involvement of his son, left deep scars on everyone involved.

As the investigation continued, the painted message outside the house, the hidden journals, the arranged belongings, and the forensic evidence created a chilling record of the captor’s mind.

Rivera and Cooper worked tirelessly, tracing property records, examining old and new tips, and analyzing evidence to reconstruct the timeline.

Each discovery added layers to an already complex case, revealing the intersection of family loyalty, coercion, and the lengths a perpetrator would go to keep his crimes hidden.

The story of Kayla, Brittany, Amber, Jenna, and Taylor is a harrowing testament to human cruelty and resilience.

While the four recovered bodies confirmed the deaths of most of the victims, Brittany Cole’s unknown fate kept hope alive, driving an ongoing investigation.

The case also exposed the dangers of hidden crimes in small communities, the impact of coerced complicity, and the painstaking work required to uncover long-buried truths.

The discovery of the Hutchkins house, the painstaking collection of evidence, and the unraveling of decades-long secrecy brought closure in part—but left questions that would haunt the families and investigators for years.

Somewhere, Brittany Cole’s fate remained uncertain, a lingering shadow over the Cherokee National Forest and a stark reminder that evil can hide behind the most ordinary facades.