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Enigma Unraveled

Discovering Everett Ruess's body turns a romantic tale into suspicion and superstition

By Amy Maestas

Found in: | Inside | News | Politics |

For 75 years, the mystery of Everett Ruess's disappearance created little agreement. The young peripatetic artist vanished in 1934 in the depths of the rugged desert in Southern Utah. His last letter to his family in California left few clues about what might have happened. The idealistic Everett was often unpredictable, giving in to his whims to seek an even closer connection to nature.
So when he went missing, he left the door wide open for scores of people over the years to write the ending to an already fascinating story. And now, people are doing just that. Ruess's grave was found in May 2008 by a Navajo man named Denny Bellson. Bellson, from Shiprock, N.M., had some answers to the decades-old mystery. He began unraveling the story of his grandfather supposedly witnessing Ruess's killing at the hands of Ute Indians, sharing it with key players in the saga and creating a roadmap that many at first thought would be a straightaway to the story's finishing line. It's anything but.
As the remains of a grave sit in sanitized laboratories, some are not willing to stamp the case closed. This story that so many yearned to embrace has turned a romantic tale into one of suspicion and superstition.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
When Bellson climbed Comb Ridge in Southern Utah and found Ruess's grave in the place his grandfather said it was, it gave the family answers. That closure lasted momentarily.
In the months after Bellson's discovery and the subsequent forensic tests completed, there is at least a handful of people - many of them archaeologists or anthropologists - who have begun poking holes in the evidence that confirms the remains are Ruess's. The questioning has elevated the mystery, prolonged an end to the story and stirred the passions of those involved in the case.
When it comes down to it, the skeptics pit anecdotes against science. Why was Ruess's body found so far from David Gulch, where he was last known to be? Why would a Navajo man not report a killing by his enemies - Ute Indians - and instead assist in covering it up? Why would a Navajo touch a dead body, when it is a cultural taboo to do so? What shape was the DNA in to be tested? Why isn't there a full-scale inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Why did the teeth from the remains have a shape unique to Native Americans?
These are all questions worthy of inquiry, but the backstory gives the best insight for a starting point.

CONFLICT AT COMB RIDGE
Everett Ruess was born in Oakland, Calif., in 1914. Though he came from an intellectual and educated family, Ruess did not endeavor to be an academic. He wanted to be like the seminomadic ancestral Puebloans and roam through nature, where he felt most comfortable and inspired. The difference being, of course, the Puebloans tried to survive this land as original inhabitants and Ruess was but a naïve visitor. Particularly special to him was the desert near Escalante, Utah. There, he roamed the delicate, narrow slickrock of Davis Gulch. He told his brother in his last letter that he was leaving Davis Gulch and heading south toward the Colorado River. Had he taken that route, Ruess likely would have ended up in Grand Gulch or Chinle Wash.
But that's not where Ruess landed. At least not according to recent discoveries. Bellson found Ruess's grave on Comb Ridge, a 120-mile long monocline along the Utah-Arizona border. More than 60 million years ago tectonic plates slipped and caused a fold in the Earth's crust, creating the massive, unique ridge. The ridge is a sandstone scar that is beautiful when viewed from the air but harsh and unforgiving when explored on foot. Dense stands of scratching scrub oak hide the thousands of crevices and alcoves. That Bellson was able to find the grave was remarkable. He was working off only memories and a second-hand story from his sister Daisy Johnson.
Johnson told her brother the story her grandfather shared - a story told in great detail in the April/May 2009 issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine. The story was written by David Roberts, a well-known journalist who had written about Ruess in the magazine's first issue. Roberts' story was like a bombshell for those who knew about Ruess. It was fact-filled, suspenseful and intriguing, even if the resolution came a month later.
Aneth Nez told his granddaughter Johnson that he saw Utes kill a young white man in the 1930s near Chinle Wash. Nez was sitting atop Comb Ridge and below him he watched three Utes chase a boy who was riding a mule. The boy rode fast, trying to outpace his pursuers. He failed. The Indians caught him, gave him a blow to the head, robbed him and took off with his mules. Nez observed from afar, most likely to keep from becoming a victim too. The Navajo and Utes were notorious enemies, and violence among them was the norm. Nez protected himself from harm, only until the Utes were out of sight.
Nez descended his perch toward the boy, who was dead by the time he reached him. Looking around for a burial place, Nez failed to find something suitable. So, Johnson told her brother, their grandfather hauled the dead boy's body up the ridge and buried him in a crevice gravesite - a common Navajo burial. In the process, Nez had the dead body's blood on him. Some 40 years later, Nez attributed his being stricken with cancer to handling the body and blood. A medicine man told Nez to retrieve a lock of hair from the buried body so they could use it in a healing ceremony. He looked to his granddaughter to take him to the grave on Comb Ridge - where, he said, he buried the body in 1934. Johnson drove him there and waited in her car as her grandfather hiked to the grave and took hair from the body. The relief Nez sought came; he lived for 10 more years.
Daisy Johnson also was looking for her own relief after she was diagnosed in 2007 with ovarian cancer. With treatment, her cancer went into remission. By early 2008, the cancer returned. Like her grandfather, she went a Navajo medicine man, who told Johnson her cancer was because of her grandfather's story. She carried his secrets. That's when she shared what she knew with her brother. Bellson acted quickly. Soon, he set out to scour Comb Ridge, going off directions his sister gave him from memory more than 35 years earlier.

SKEPTICS RISE
Weeks after he began his search, Bellson found the grave he knew was out there. It was a west-facing crevice, hidden easily from passersby and wild animals. The remains having been there for 75 years certainly were worse for the wear, though the crevice grave provided more protection than a subterranean plot in the open.
Still, state of Utah archaeologist Kevin Jones lists the condition of the bones as one of several questionable pieces of evidence that led researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder, to conclude almost without a modicum of doubt that the remains are those of Ruess.
In a statement released shortly after CU-Boulder and National Geographic Adventurer magazine announced the body was Ruess, Jones and his peer Derinna Kopp, a physical anthropologist, called for additional analyses. They have cited many reasons to doubt the outcome, even if Jones is quick to point out he's not questioning the competencies of scientists who performed the tests. "It's not about the belief of the outcome, it's about the process," Jones said.
Jones hinges much of his dispute on the condition of the bones when retrieved. Many who learned how the FBI initially treated the gravesite are dismayed that the evidence was mishandled. Vaughn Hadenfeldt, owner of Far Out Expeditions in Bluff, Utah, was the first non-native person to visit the gravesite. After Bellson found it, he called Hadenfeldt to tell him about the discovery. Together, the two went to Comb Ridge and visually inspected the grave. Hadenfeldt said the site was undisturbed - just the way he and Bellson left it after their visit. Bellson let the FBI know about the site, and later accompanied them to inspect it. Investigators extracted artifacts from the site, shifting pieces around with seemingly little regard for context and delicacy. After determining the grave was that of a Navajo, investigators gathered objects initially outside the grave and tossed them in, including what's believed to be Aneth Nez's saddle. In the process, a nearly intact skull was broken into pieces. "It didn't look anything like the site I visited," Hadenfeldt said. "I looked at it and wondered, �?what the hell happened here?'"
Ron Maldonado, supervisory archaeologist for the Navajo Nation, asked the FBI not to visit the site without him. He knew the importance of context and care of the artifacts. Investigators didn't listen. "I think it was poor form for (the FBI) to come to that quick conclusion," said Hadenfeldt. "It certainly messed up the scene. But we have a reasonable record of what it looked like before they were there." Hadenfeldt said the FBI's rough-handling didn't compromise the quality of the DNA.
CU-Boulder professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology Ken Krauter agrees. "My sense is it wasn't a pristine scene anyway," he said.

LOOKING AT TEETH
Important pieces in identifying the remains were the mandible and teeth. Maldonado and Hadenfeldt excavated the site, carefully plucking the delicate pieces from their location. Several teeth remained in place in the mandible. To Jones, the Utah archaeologist, those teeth are dubious evidence it's Ruess. Jones says the incisors - the front teeth in a mouth - are distinctly Native American, occurring in a majority of Indians. The incisors are shaped like shovels, giving them a unique look. And Jones is right. The teeth extracted from the grave are shovel-shaped, and some 84 percent of Native Americans have the trait, said Dennis Van Gerven, CU-Boulder anthropology professor who used fragments of the skeleton to create a biological profile. But the trait also occurs in 8 percent of Western Europeans and up to 15 percent of Africans.
Brian Ruess, Everett Ruess's nephew, easily dismisses the incisor argument because his sister Michele has shovel-shaped incisors. So did his father, Waldo, who was Everett's brother. "The strength of the argument about why it's not a white person's teeth is lost," said Ruess, a resident of Portland, Ore.
The DNA-testing process was conducted at CU-Boulder. Through an intense procedure, Krauter and Van Gerven began putting pieces into place using the same tools as they do in other investigations. To get to their conclusion, Krauter used DNA samples from four of Everett's nieces and nephews. He then did a genetic comparison against markers - a genetic trait used in analyzing family linkage. Using 600,000 DNA markers, Krauter found 25 percent of them matched with the Ruess family. Krauter also did the same DNA tests using genes from 50 random, unrelated people. The match was less than 0.1 percent - a negligible number. Combined with Van Gerven's face reconstruction, the two scientists culled their information to prove that the remains in the gravesite were of a European male, between 19 and 22 years old who was about Everett Ruess's height - 5 feet, 8 inches. "The DNA evidence to me is overwhelming. It's very unusual to have (600,000) markers," Krauter said. "Even the FBI uses only 13 markers when they do DNA testing."
Van Gerven said they did a complete forensic analysis in the same way they do others. "Genetic evidence is not just another kind of evidence," he said, incredulous that the contests led by Jones are continuing to be discussed in light of the DNA evidence. "This is the kind of evidence that puts people on death row and takes people off death row."
Van Gerven and Krauter are preparing a peer-reviewed article about the case. They hope it will satisfy Jones' criticism that their complete analysis report hasn't been put in the public realm. Krauter says reports take time to write and take time to get published. Van Gerven is frustrated that the process is "backwards." Typically, doubts about a scientific process arise after reports are published and people have a chance to vet them for holes. If any is found, only then are refutations brought forward. In the Ruess case, the skeptics are basing their questions on incomplete information, Van Gerven said.
Ultimately, the professor likened the case against the evidence to conspiracy theories, "like the JFK killing or the Obama birthers," he said.
Hadenfeldt said the same. "Instead of people hiding on the grassy knoll, we have people hiding out on the rim rock."

CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS
We know that Nez was at least watching Ruess and the Ute Indians from afar. What transpired after that remains an open-ended question that Hadenfeldt said can't be answered. Navajo avoidance of the dead is well-known. Their cultural belief is that if a person is not buried properly, his or her spirit would roam the earth and return to the world of the living. They avoid contact with a dead body, even eye contact. Certainly taboo is touching blood of a dead person. That Nez had blood on him from the boy's body adds a layer of intrigue to the Ruess case. Historians explain the 1930s reservation life as a cultural warfare. Native Americans had few rights. The U.S. government was carrying out its stock reduction program on Navajo land, disenfranchising them from their land and subjecting them to an outsider's law system. A Navajo alerting law enforcement after a murder likely wasn't a safe option. Death was a way of life then. A young white boy wandering strange territory was alarming in a way that could prompt unusual reactions.
Nez may also have opted out of taking on three Ute Indians simply because he was outnumbered. Murdering a white boy surely would mean murdering an enemy trying to defend him. Instead, Nez may have observed Ruess for a couple of days search for ruins as he often did. One theory Hadenfeldt shares is that Ruess switched his plans after writing his last letter to his brother, Waldo, and set out toward Canyon de Chelly. He was familiar with the canyon and may have sought some ruins there. If so, following Chinle Wash would have put him on track to the canyon.

GETTING ON BOARD
On some level, Hadenfeldt knows how the skeptics feel. He said when he visited the site - about nine times total before remains were cleared - he had intermittent doubts. He'd find a clue here or there that would halt his thinking that it was Ruess in the grave. Even David Roberts, the journalist for National Geographic Adventurer, dismissed the story out of hand initially. After Bellson told Hadenfeldt he found the grave, Hadenfeldt called Roberts, a friend and with whom he worked with on the journalist's story about Ruess 10 years ago. Hadenfeldt said Roberts "kind of blew it off." Only after Hadenfeldt's trip to the gravesite and second call to the writer did Roberts begin to consider the story.
From then on, Hadenfeldt said it was a slow process - not a quick one as Jones asserts. Publication in the 10th anniversary of the Adventurer didn't have bearing on tests and conclusions. In fact, says Brian Ruess, the national magazine pushed back publication a month after it was to originally run. Brian Ruess also points to the magazine's willingness to print the story without a conclusion.
Steve Jerman, who maintains the Web site everettruess.net and who earned the right to license and sell merchandise depicting Everett Ruess's art, was initially skeptic. "Really, there was no reason to be found or not to be found," Jerman said. But he knows there are a number of people who are unhappy that Ruess's remains turned up; he just doesn't know why.
After the DNA results, Jerman was satisfied with the outcome. Hadenfeldt and the Ruess family have been also. Brian Ruess said the family is taking Jones' criticisms seriously. "We don't want to be wrong," he said. The family has not cremated the remains. Instead, it has sent the DNA to two independent institutions to review the results from CU-Boulder scientists and to take into consideration Jones and others' questions. Brian Ruess declined to name the institutions because he wants an untainted process and to keep media inquiries at bay. He said at least one of the institutions will conduct more tests than what was done the first time, including DNA analyses. "We aren't determined to follow any one path or let time dictate the process," Brian Ruess said. "We are attempting to eliminate any bias."
Van Gerven and Krauter explain their detachment to the case. Neither man knew who Everett Ruess was when National Geographic asked them to participate in the case. Krauter said being involved was an "intellectual exercise." Van Gerven also was part of the case because of science, not emotion. "I don't have any horse in this race," he said.
Hadenfeldt believes the discovery of Ruess's body has made the story of the young artistic wanderer even more alluring. "In some ways, the mystery has gotten larger," he said, adding that after National Geographic broke the story he received many requests from customers asking him to guide them to the burial site. People wanted to build a shrine, sleep where Ruess died or sit among his spirit. "It was a little weird," Hadenfeldt said. He declined all requests. The family and others involved in the case are keeping the location of the gravesite a secret - partly because it's on Navajo land and partly to prevent the site from becoming an attraction a la Chris McCandless, the young man who died in the Alaska wilderness and was the subject of the popular adventure book Into the Wild.
Indeed, the tale is incomplete for Ruess admirers. So, too, is it for Denny Bellson, the Navajo man who found Ruess's grave in an effort to explore a family secret that troubled his grandfather and sister. Now trying to stay out of the media spotlight, Bellson has retreated to Shiprock, wondering what might happen to him. "Denny expects to have some really bad consequences for dealing with this," Hadenfeldt, his friend, said. "I think he fully believes something bad will happen to him - something physical. He's concerned. But what he did was out of curiosity, not disrespect."
Bellson's own story now has an uncertain ending. How he affected the Ruess case remains in the hands of additional scientific discovery to quell the critics. And that's where the Ruess story, after 75 years without an ending, becomes one that was about nature, lore, passion and mystery and turns it into a story about science.

AMY MAESTAS is a contributing editor to Inside/Outside Southwest magazine and blogger on InsideOutsideMag.com.