A dry topo map lay under a soaked dead woman's palm

A dry topo map lay under a soaked dead woman's palm

A single, impossible detail - the topographic map under Frances Dempsey's right palm was structurally uncreased and completely dry while everything around her was soaked - stopped the deputy medical examiner cold on August 9, 2011. The paper map bears a pencil circle marking a point roughly 200 meters north of her body; why that circle was there and how the map stayed dry remain unanswered. What did Frances find beyond the mapped routes, and what did searchers miss?

In this episode, we follow the timeline of Frances Dempsey's last known movements, the search and rescue efforts that traced her to Rim Notch, and the physical evidence that refused to fit the expected story. How did a meticulous, experienced hiker with a precise hand-drawn sketch end up where no published map had accurately drawn the terrain?

Person: Frances Dempsey Date: August 6-9, 2011 Location: Aldene River side of the Laramie Bench range; near Donner Lake and Brecker Peak Status: Body found by Melissa Quinn in a gravel drainage on August 9, 2011 Case: Unresolved anomalies in search evidence and terrain mapping

- Frances signed the Donner Lake Trailhead register at 5:51 a.m. on August 6, 2011; that is the last confirmed record of her alive. - A second register entry, "T. Burris" at 6:08 a.m. the same morning, listed a non-working phone number and an untraceable name. - Frances's hand-drawn sketch annotated a low point along the ridge at approximately 10,800 feet, cutting about 1.5 miles off the longer route through Fenwick Saddle. - Dog teams tracked Frances's scent steadily past the four-mile split to Rim Notch, where the scent trail ended at roughly 10,800 feet. - The topographic map found under Frances's right palm was folded flat with its north edge up, structurally uncreased, and completely dry despite the surrounding ground being wet from overnight rain.

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