Gerry Largay, also known as Geraldine Largay, disappeared on July 22, 2013, after she left the trail to use the bathroom.
She was an experienced hiker who enjoyed connecting with other hikers on her journeys. Her husband, George, was deeply affected by her disappearance and immediately drove 22 miles to the shelter where she was last seen.
The only information available to investigators at the time were Largay’s photographs, taken early in the morning on the day she went missing.
The pictures showed a wood lean-to with a fire pit nearby and three walls covered in a corrugated tin roof. This was the last known location of Largay.
Recently, the Maine warden service released documents revealing that a hiker survived for 26 days after going missing from the Appalachian Trail.
This hiker composed frantic journal entries and text messages that their family had only just received, only when the hiker was found authorities discovered what had happened in their final days.
Similarly, Largay’s notebook was found on August 6, 2013, two weeks after she vanished. In her notebook, she made a desperate plea for whoever found her body to contact her husband and daughter to let them know where she was found.
Largay knew that this would be the greatest kindness for her family, no matter how many years it might take.
According to records, Largay tried to contact her husband after she became disoriented. She made ten attempts to text him, but the message was never received due to the inadequate or non-existent cell service.
She continued to try and contact him for the next hour and a half as she sought higher ground. Eventually, she set up camp for the evening.
The next day, Largay tried to text her husband again at 4:18 p.m. with the message “Missing since yesterday—3 or 4 kilometers off the trail. For advice, contact the police.”
George Largay became concerned and started an official search the following day involving state police, national park rangers, and the fire department. The search expanded beyond the warden service to include search aircraft.
Doubts made against the suspect
According to recently released public records, Largay’s close friends had doubts about her ability to hike alone, as first reported by the Boston Globe.
In October 2015, a forester working for the US Navy, whose land borders the hiking route, found what he thought could be a human body.
Lieutenant Kevin Adam wrote, “It was a human body; it was animal bones, or if it was a human body, was it Gerry Largay?”
He found a flattened tent, a green backpack outside of it, and a human skull with what he believed to be a sleeping bag around it. He was “99% certain that this was Gerry Largay’s.”
The site was in dense woods near the border of the Navy and public domains, and Largay had tied a space blanket between branches for some protection.
Trekking essentials were discovered in the camp, including a blue baseball cap, dental floss, and a handcrafted necklace with a white stone tied in the string. Maps, a rain jacket, a space blanket, twine, Ziploc bags, a flashlight that still worked, and other items were also found.
According to her journal entries, Largay spent around two days wandering after taking the wrong path across a stream and looked for ridges where she could rediscover her sense of location.
After a medical examiner determined that Largay had died of exposure, her family commended the warden service for their dedication to finding her. The family of GerryLargay is now asking for privacy as they continue to grieve and come to terms with this new chapter of closure.
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