When a beautiful co-ed is brutally murdered on a popular hiking trail in Prescott National Forest in the summer of 1987, authorities are stumped on who the killer could be. The investigation drags on for decades until finally something breaks. This is the first of two episodes covering the murder of Cathy Sposito.View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-afterlife-part-1 Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @parkpredators | @audiochuckTwitter: @ParkPredators | @audiochuckFacebook: /ParkPredators | /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck
Full Episode
Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the story I'm going to tell you about today was just so powerful and complex that I decided to bring it to you in two parts. I literally received more than 250 pages and documents from the investigating agency that worked this case in order to put these episodes together.
And I guarantee you it's a story you won't be able to stop thinking about for a long, long time. It happened in Prescott National Forest in Arizona, which bears the moniker where the desert meets the pines. It's more than a million acres in size and is a go-to destination for hikers and campers because it sits in central Arizona and has a typically mild climate. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's website, it became a national forest in 1907, and in the years after that, kept expanding its boundaries to include Verde and Tosea National Forests. It's known for having an abundance of archaeological sites that house art and artifacts that different people groups left behind hundreds and even thousands of years ago, as far back as the Pueblo period.
There's a rich history of generational human activity in the forest, which is one feature that attracts a lot of visitors and researchers. But in the spring of 1987, there was one person who came to the forest and left a mark so memorable and so disturbing that he would become the obsession of local authorities for more than three decades.
Park Predators
so so
Around 8.10 in the morning on Saturday, June 13th, 1987, a husband and wife named Roger and Opal were walking up the East Trail of Thumb Butte in Prescott National Forest when they came across the bloody body of a young woman just lying on the trail. Roger reached out his hand to check for a pulse on the woman's neck, but didn't find one.
He and Opal then quickly hiked back down to a nearby campground and flagged down a passing motorist who helped them report what they'd found to the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. While the couple waited for authorities to arrive, they didn't sit idle. They returned to where the woman's body was so they could cover her with a wool blanket.
But on their way, they encountered another hiker who said she'd stumbled across the body too. This woman had been walking down the trail back toward the parking lot when she noticed the victim. She stopped to check for a pulse, but just like Roger, discovered the woman didn't have one.
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