The Shoe on the Boulder: How Two Were Found, One Vanished

The Shoe on the Boulder: How Two Were Found, One Vanished

A small purple child's shoe stood upright on a granite boulder at 6,400 feet - laces tied, LED lights intact, and no footprints in the surrounding snow; a missing mother and her six-year-old daughter vanished during a January outing in the Tuckaway, and only one child was found alive. What happened on that mountain across sixty silent hours that left a shoe inexplicably planted and a trail that dissolved into nothing?

In this episode, we follow the timeline of the three-day search: the handoff at the community center, the storm that dropped six inches of snow and high winds, the discovery of Abby Reese and the baffling signals the dog teams tracked before losing the trail. How did a size four purple shoe end up standing on a boulder with no footprints around it, and where did Brenda and Lily go?

Person: Brenda Morgan
Person: Lily (age 6)
Person: Abby Reese (age 7)
Date: January 7-9
Location: Duvall Creek lower trailhead, Tuckaway ridgeline

- Brenda's last text to Tina at 2:04 PM read "found some, Lily happy."
- Deputies found Brenda's locked truck at the Duvall Creek trailhead at 7:50 PM the same day.
- Snowfall of six inches occurred in the lower elevations that afternoon; above 6,500 feet experienced wind and hard freeze.
- Abby Reese was found at 11:20 PM the night of January 8, sitting beside a ponderosa pine, unhurt and calm.
- The purple shoe on the boulder was size four, purple mesh with a cartoon rocket on the tongue and LED lights in the heel, discovered at 6:53 AM on January 9 with no surrounding footprints.

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