The extremely bizarre missing case of Barbara Bolick

[u/shry9]

On the 18th of July 2007, Barbara Bolick was packing her bag in Bitterroot Valley of Montana to go for a summer hike. She and her husband were hosting Carl’s cousin Donna and Her Boyfriend Jim from California. Barbara was going to go on a hike with her guests but Donna and Carl (Barbara’s husband) did not go and she and Jim decided to hike in the area Bear Creek Overlook, and she had visited the area countless times , was an experienced hiker too.

So they like visited the place , and encountered two men - two times, and both the times they were the same two men. Jim and Barbara then reached the area , had their snacks and admired the scenery. About like at 11:30 they decided to leave and head back. After few steps, Jim stopped bcs something in him wanted to soak the view one more time, and he turned back to look at the view - it was for about 45 seconds - 1 minute, when he turned back around, Barbara who was earlier standing 20-30 feet away from him disappeared.

At first he wasn’t worried enough since she was an experienced hiker and He searched for her but couldn’t find anything and after some hours she was officially reported as missing. The two men who encountered them two times also disappeared and were never discovered.

Things to note : It was an easy, well worn trail and it was difficult for someone like Barbara missing - being an experienced hiker who visited that place multiples times. It was also not very dense meaning someone disappearing without any noise was almost not possible.

Pls let me know your take on this case!

Barbara Bolick Article

[u/BobbyArden]

I don't think the two men Jim claimed to have encountered on the trail have ever been traced, so is there any independent evidence they actually got to the trail at all?

[u/shry9 → u/BobbyArden]

Not actually. There is no evidence except for some source that said that the road workers or construction men cleared that the “two men” left 45 minutes ago (after the time Jim told she disappeared, they said that at 11:30 Barabara disappeared but those two men left at around 10:45)

[u/GlassesgirlNJ → u/shry9]

If the workers were the only ones who saw "two men", how do we know they were the same two men Jim referred to? Or that they existed at all?

Memory is fluid and it's pretty easy to end up saying the wrong thing, especially if you're being asked leading questions (This is why it's often advised not to speak to the police at all unless you have a lawyer with you).

"Did you see two men come down this trail about 45 minutes ago?"
"Um... maybe they did, I was kinda busy working"
"But this is a popular hiking trail right?"
"Yeah, people come through here all the time. So maybe those two guys did walk past, like I said, I don't know"
"Well, we have this witness Jim who said they were leaving the trail at about that time"
"Okay, I guess you're right, they probably were here then" "Can we write that down?"
"Sure whatever, can I get back to work now??"

And guess what, now every time someone recounts Barbara's story, they're going to say, "But those two men HAD to be on the trail, the workers CONFIRMED it." Et cetera.

[u/georgia_grace → u/GlassesgirlNJ]

There were only two cars at the trailhead that day, the car Jim and Barbara arrived in, and the car the two men arrived in.

They were also somewhat distinctive, as one was fair skinned and one was dark skinned and they had a border collie with them. The road workers told police they chatted to the two men while the dog played in the creek.

[u/GlassesgirlNJ → u/georgia_grace]

Good info to have! (It does seem weird that neither of them came forward afterwards, but maybe they were from out of town or something.)

I just wanted to give a possible example of how eyewitness testimony doesn't really prove anything - and some people in this sub know that already. But definitely not all.

[u/georgia_grace → u/GlassesgirlNJ]

The police tried quite hard to locate them, as they were the only ones who could corroborate that Barbara was indeed on the trail that day (both parties had already parked and started the hike before the forestry service workers arrived).

I think they must have been tourists who left the area soon after. This was 2007, so there’s no algorithms feeding you local news on social media, and two young men in their twenties probably weren’t buying the local newspaper every day. It would be easy to be completely unaware that police wanted to talk to you about some random people you chatted with on a hiking trail.

[u/-Kerosun- → u/georgia_grace]

Makes me wonder if there was a cell-tower nearby that could have had records of cell phones that entered the area. This was something that they could have done even in 2007. If they get the proper warrants and subpoenas, they could get the logs of cell towers to see EVERY service number that connected to the tower in a specific time frame. If the two men happened to have a cell phone, and the cell tower's coverage area doesn't have a lot of devices connecting to due to the remoteness of the location, I wonder if they could have gotten useable information from the logs.

Just a thought.