Emily Craig - Teasing Secrets from the Dead - My Investigations at America's Most Infamous Crime Scenes

Despite the cartoon-like quality of these criminal efforts, Hall's murder was never discovered, and we might never have found the body if one of the men hadn't been arrested on an unrelated felony charge a year later. He gave up the story as part of some legal maneuvering, and I was called in when the detective who first entered the mine saw that parts of the body were skeletonized. Fearing that their own recovery of the remains might damage crucial evidence, local law enforcement officials asked me to take over.

I got the call late in the day, and I knew it would be almost dark by the time I drove over to Pike County, which is right on the West Virginia border. Still, it was going to be pitch dark in the mine at any hour, so this was one case where the time of day really didn't matter.

I'd never been inside a coal mine before, and the two-hour drive to the scene gave my imagination plenty of time to run wild. I seemed to recall every movie or television show I'd ever seen in which people got trapped inside a collapsing mine shaft or a secluded cave, leaving them without light or air-a fantasy that started to seem more and more real as the sun set and the sky grew darker.

My actual arrival on-site did nothing to calm the fears. As I was climbing into my jumpsuit and strapping on my kneepads, Pike County Coroner Charles Morris came up to me and said, “You know, Doc, you don't have to go in there if you don't want to. Those mine inspectors started talking after I called you up here, and although they assured me that the mine was safe, they were a little worried about sending in a woman who'd never been in a coal mine before.”

I stared silently at him for at least five seconds while my mind raced. Everyone had turned to look at me and I knew I'd be judged by what I said next. I took a deep breath.

“First of all, Charles, nobody is sending me into that mine. I'm walking in with those guys who are telling you it's safe.” I pointed directly at the men from the Bureau of Mine Safety and chuckled a little to soften my words, but I was serious as I added, “Of course, if they choose to stay out here in the open, I'll be right out here with them.”

I could see the investigators nodding to each other, and that gave me the courage to go on. “Besides, Charles, how bad can it be? There's the entrance, and it's a lot bigger than I expected. Heck, it looks like it's eight feet high and a good fifteen feet wide. I've been in lots of spaces smaller than that.”

This time it was the mine inspectors who laughed, and if I'd been a little more astute to the glances that passed between them, maybe I would have swallowed my pride and stayed outside. But I didn't. With my best show of bravado, I reached for my regular hard hat and picked up my biggest flashlight.

“No, Doc, that won't do,” said Charles. “You have to wear this.” He handed me a dented and blackened coal miner's helmet and a flat metal box to which was attached a short insulated cable and small spotlight. As I held this helmet in one hand and the box in the other, he strapped a thick nylon webbed belt around my waist.

“Put on the helmet first, Doc, and I'll adjust it for you.”

I did as I was told. The headgear fit surprisingly well after Charles gave a little twist to a knob at the back of my neck, just under the helmet's rim. Next he took the flat orange-colored box from me and hooked it onto the belt.

“This here's the battery for that light you still have in your hand,” he explained. “It's fully charged and should last as long as you're in there-unless, of course, you get lost or trapped.” He looked me straight in the eye, but couldn't keep a straight face for long. I expect he spotted the apprehension that was starting to creep back into my eyes as I watched some of the mine inspectors shaking hands and wishing “good luck” to the folks who would be leading me inside.

“Hey, Doc, I was just kidding,” Charles said in what I think he meant as a reassuring tone. He grabbed the cable attached to the battery and snaked it up through a loop in the back of my helmet, clipping it and the spotlight to the metal frame over my forehead. Then he clicked the light on and off a few times, just to make sure it worked. It gave off a bright white beam that seemed powerful enough in the dim twilight-but what kind of illumination would it provide once I was underground?

“Looks like you're good to go now, Doc,” Charles said cheerfully. “Give me a minute to get my stuff on, and we'll join the others. Maybe you could grab that body bag and my camera from the back of that pickup over there while I suit up.”

As we walked over to the mine entrance, Charles took the bag and the camera, leaving me free to walk into the mine with empty hands. As nonchalantly as I could, I turned on my light, pulled on my favorite leather gloves, and followed the other five members of the recovery team, who all finally turned on their own helmet lights and divided into pairs. We walked upright and side by side for about two hundred yards into the base of the mountain. By now, the last of the outside light had faded away and our tiny headlamps cast eerie shadows as they bounced along in cadence with our footsteps.

Then, suddenly, the shaft narrowed dramatically, like a funnel, the sides and ceiling closing in until there wasn't room to walk abreast or even to stand upright. That's when I noticed the silence. We were so far underground that no outside sound could penetrate, and I suddenly felt a wave of panic, gasping for breath and breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Wait up a minute, guys,” I called to the men ahead of me. I had stopped dead in my tracks, trying to get control of my breathing. “I'm having a little trouble, here.”

Newcomer's jitters were old hat to them, so they all stood together in a group, waiting for me to gather the courage to continue. I could tell they were amused by my discomfort, and more than one derisive glance was cast my way; but, frankly, I didn't care. I thought I was doing pretty damned good to have come this far!

Charles did, too. From this point on, he kept up a running commentary about the case, knowing that would keep my mind too busy to conjure up images of danger.

“We know who this guy is supposed to be, Doc. He disappeared about a year and a half ago, and the fella who told us where he hid the body said he helped with the killin'. While we were waiting for you to get here, I went ahead and collected a batch of the victim's x-rays, so hopefully you can identify him at tomorrow's autopsy. I think I told you that the head's been cut off, and it looks like maybe rats or something's been working on his fingers. There's no skin or prints left.”

By now, I was stooped over and proceeding in a duck-walk crouch, a position so uncomfortable that it was hard to keep my mind on the case. My poor knees and back were about to give out, and my only comfort was that the situation couldn't possibly get any worse.

And then, of course, it did. Suddenly, the men in front of me stopped and one hung a lantern light on a hook that had been drilled into a single support timber.

“This is it,” he said, pointing to a pile of jumbled coal and flat rocks. “From here on in, we'll be on hands and knees, but you've gotta be careful not to hit any of the support timbers on the other side of this pile. For some reason, the men who killed this guy pulled out most of the supports. I think the ones left are good enough to keep this shaft open, but this batch of rocks fell just as we were coming in to look for the body this morning, so let's not take any chances.”

You don't have to worry about me, I thought. I had taken all the chances I was going to take just by coming down here in the first place.

Apparently without fear, the leaders of our team lay down and slithered through an opening that was just high enough to accommodate the bulk of an average-sized man. Swallowing hard, I followed them. After crawling a seemingly endless hundred yards on our hands and knees, we rounded a sharp corner and entered a slightly larger cavern about a mile and a half inside the mine, where Everett Hall had lain for the past eighteen months. His mummified corpse was perched on its belly on top of a pile of mine timbers, pointing a bony finger straight at us.