In the wild heart of Yellowstone National Park, a couple’s quest for adventure turned into a chilling mystery that lingered unsolved for eight years. Daniel and Savannah Moore, vibrant South Carolinians in their 30s, vanished during a 2016 hike, leaving behind a perplexing campsite and no trace. In 2024, a hunter’s routine bear kill revealed fragments of their story—hiking gear in the animal’s stomach and a dental implant that cracked open a case of murder, dismemberment, and a fugitive still at large. The gruesome discovery of Savannah’s sawed skull in a ravine points to a killer’s desperate attempt to hide the truth. What drove this brutality, and will justice ever catch up?
Daniel, a programmer, and Savannah, a graphic designer, were no strangers to the wilderness. On August 15, 2016, they registered for a three-day hike along Yellowstone’s Bechler River Trail, a remote stretch in the park’s Cascade Corner known for its waterfalls and solitude. Equipped with food, maps, and extra supplies, they were ready for adventure. Ranger Mike Donovan, their last contact, saw them that afternoon, 10 miles from the trailhead. “They were in high spirits,” he recalled, noting their questions about a secluded hot spring. They planned to exit the park by Thursday, August 18, but never appeared.
When their Subaru remained in the trailhead lot, alarm bells rang. By Friday, a search party of rangers and volunteers scoured the trail. At a campsite near the hot spring, they found a scene that baffled them: a tent with a melted corner, scattered freeze-dried food, and open backpacks, as if abandoned in haste. Unlike a bear attack’s chaos, the site suggested human rage or panic. Sleeping bags lay untouched, a cooking pot dented. Dogs traced a scent to the river, then lost it, as if the Moores had vanished into thin air. Helicopters, drones, and experts combed the area for weeks, finding nothing—no clothes, no gear, no bodies.
Theories swirled: an accident, like drowning or a fall; a bear attack, though the camp didn’t fit; or foul play, with the burned tent hinting at a botched cover-up. A lone camper, Marcus Thorne, 42, from Idaho, had been half a mile away. Questioned in 2016, he heard voices but noticed nothing odd and left the park on schedule. With no leads, the case grew cold, haunting the Moores’ family and joining Yellowstone’s list of unsolved mysteries, featured in documentaries about lost hikers.
In spring 2024, a farmer’s complaint about a livestock-attacking bear shifted the narrative. Wildlife officers killed a 500-pound male grizzly in northern Yellowstone, 60 miles from the Moores’ trail. During a routine autopsy, biologists found not just animal remains but blue synthetic fabric—likely from a hiking jacket—and a titanium dental implant. Its serial number traced to a Charleston, South Carolina, clinic, identifying Daniel Moore. The cold case ignited, hitting national headlines and rekindling the family’s pain. But the distance—60 rugged miles—ruled out an animal dragging the bodies. Someone had moved them.
The FBI and Wyoming State Police launched a new search near the bear’s kill site. On the third day, a cadaver dog led agents to a ravine, where they unearthed a moss-covered skull. Forensic experts froze when they saw it: Savannah Moore’s skull, identified by DNA, had been sliced horizontally from temple to temple, the cut made by a carpenter’s saw, not a surgical tool. “This was deliberate, post-mortem,” an expert noted, suggesting an attempt to hide a cause of death, like a bullet wound. Scattered bone fragments nearby confirmed both Daniel and Savannah, but the remains were sparse, weathered by seven years in the wild.
Anthropologists at Quantico’s FBI lab delivered a grim verdict: the Moores were killed and dismembered by fall 2017, a year after vanishing. The bear consumed remnants in 2024, meaning the bodies lay hidden for years before exposure. The killer likely stashed them for a year, then dismembered and relocated them to a remote ravine, hoping they’d never be found. The sawed skull pointed to a calculated effort to obscure evidence, perhaps a gunshot. The investigation pivoted to Marcus Thorne, the lone camper. In 2016, he was a fleeting figure, but now, his disappearance in summer 2017—matching the dismemberment timeline—raised red flags.
Thorne, a reclusive handyman with carpentry skills, lived in rural Idaho, three hours from Yellowstone. Neighbors called him volatile, prone to anger. In 2017, he vanished abruptly, leaving spoiled food and taking his tools. His Ford pickup, found months later near the Canadian border, was scrubbed clean—no fingerprints, no hair. “He covered his tracks,” an agent said. The FBI’s theory crystallized: Thorne encountered the Moores, killed them in a dispute—perhaps over a campsite—and staged a clumsy bear attack. Fearing discovery, he hid the bodies, returning in 2017 to dismember and dump them 60 miles away, then fled, possibly to Canada.
The Moores’ campsite, with its scattered food and burned tent, suggested panic, not a bear’s chaos. Thorne’s carpentry tools could explain the sawed skull, an attempt to destroy evidence. His disappearance, timed with the dismemberment, and his clean truck painted him as a man running from guilt. In 2024, the FBI named Thorne the prime suspect in the double murder, issuing a federal warrant. His 2015 driver’s license photo—a gaunt man with a heavy gaze—now graces wanted posters and Interpol databases, but he remains a ghost.
The Moores’ family, shattered yet relieved to know the truth, faces a hollow victory. “We know who took them, but where is he?” Savannah’s sister said on X, sparking debates about park safety and justice delayed. Posts lament the wilderness’s hidden dangers, with one user writing, “Yellowstone’s beauty hides monsters.” The case, open but stagnant, echoes the Vancouver “Babes in the Woods,” where persistence brought answers but no closure. Thorne, possibly living under a new name, holds the final pieces of a puzzle that may never be complete.
As Yellowstone’s trails welcome new hikers, the Moores’ story lingers—a warning of the darkness beneath nature’s splendor. Daniel and Savannah, who sought only a moment of peace, met a fate no one could foresee. Their killer’s calculated cruelty, from a sawed skull to a scrubbed truck, speaks to a mind bent on evasion. For now, the wilderness keeps its secrets, and the Moores’ loved ones wait, hoping justice will one day find the man who turned a hike into a horror story.
