The Hill

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Dylia DeAmbra, and the story I'm going to tell you today takes place in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, very close to the Tennessee North Carolina border. It's a bizarre missing persons case, which is a statement that feels like deja vu for me to even say. Reason being, if you've been tuning in to the podcast since the very beginning, you know that missing persons cases in this particular park is a subject I've broached before. Just go back and listen to the local, an episode I did about Michael Haren's disappearance in 2008. The field, which is the case of missing boy Dennis Martin from the late 1960s. And then there's also the student, Trenti Lynn Gibson's mind-boggling disappearance from 1976. All these cases are confounding, frustrating, and follow a eerie pattern. One moment someone is visible, and then the next, they're just gone. Never to be seen again, with little to no clues left behind. Today's episode falls into that same category. It happened in the fall of 1981 on a trail in the southern part of the park that's been around since the 1930s. It's an attraction long love by mountain bikers, hikers, and campers who are eager to see the region's beautiful streams and waterfalls. The iconic fog of the Smoky's rises and falls here just like it does everywhere else in the park. And just like that fog, there's no pakeness shielding answers in this particular case. Perhaps by the end of this episode, you'll have landed on a theory that you feel certain about, but perhaps not. This is Park Predators. Around four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, September 25, 1981, two women named Trula Gudger and Pauline Cannon were hiking on Deep Creek Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park with another one of their friends named Pauline Melton. Pauline, who most often went by the nickname "Paulie" had been walking with them when suddenly she started walking faster and got fairly far ahead of them. At that point in their hike, the trio had made it to the end of the trailhead and were about halfway back on their return trip. The route, which is a loop, is about four and a half miles total, two-ish miles in and two-ish miles out. Seeing that Paulie was going faster than them, Trula and Pauline called out to her, but Paulie just glanced over her shoulder at them and laughed. Then she continued onward over the top of a small hill. Her friends thought her behavior was odd, especially because they knew Paulie smoked like two packs of cigarettes a day, so it seemed strange she'd suddenly gotten the burst of energy and raised so far ahead of them. When Trula and Pauline crested the hill Paulie had gone over, they stopped a bit confused. Their friend was nowhere inside. I have to imagine that in that moment the women probably didn't panic or get too worried because they likely assumed Paulie had outpaced them and would meet them back at the start of the trailhead. According to news coverage from that time, after finishing their hike around 430, Trula and Pauline returned to their camping trailers near Deep Creek Campground where they found Robert, Paulie's 78-year-old husband, sitting in he and Paulie's trailer. His wife, though, wasn't with him, and he said he hadn't seen her since the group left. That concerned the women, so much so that they quickly roped in Pauline's husband to go back down the trail and search for her. When he returned without finding Paulie, the group then contacted the National Park Service and reported her missing. Around 5 o'clock, the NPS launched a formal search for the missing 58-year-old and closed Deep Creek Trail as well as a neighboring shorter trail. The search effort on that Friday night and in the following few days involved at least four park rangers and as many as 25 people. The terrain wasn't as treacherous as it was complicated. Carson Brewer reported for the Knoxville News Sentinel that there were several side trails that branched off Deep Creek Trail. Some of those paths connected to the nearby campground while others shot directly off the main trailhead. A few of the trails led to nearby waterfalls while others looped to the main road. An article by Dot Jackson for the Charlotte Observer explained that there were at least three bridges on Deep Creek Trail which one would have to cross while hiking. And of course, running right through all of this was Deep Creek itself, a stream of water that feeds several area waterfalls. So in the dark on that Friday night, searchers use lights to illuminate the creek and some of its deeper pools. You know, just in case Paulie was in one of those, but she wasn't. The situation was perplexing because Paulie was an experienced visitor who was familiar with the area she gone hiking in. United Press International reported that she'd been visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park specifically the Deep Creek region for at least two decades prior to her disappearance. According to a park ranger who spoke with the Asheville citizen times, Paulie's friend said that the Deep Creek Trail was a path she'd hike many, many times. It was considered a somewhat easy trail. So even if she had been unfamiliar with the terrain, it wasn't like it was the type of trail that would have been overtly challenging for most people to traverse. Carson Brewer's article for the Knoxville News Sentinel explained that Paulie had high blood pressure and was a chronic smoker, but despite that, she was considered experienced enough to hike the trail with ease. The following morning, Saturday, September 26, authorities brought in several dogs to assist in the search. Those animals came from as far away as Virginia and as close as Haywood County, which is near the city of Asheville, North Carolina. Initially, NPS officials told The Press that they didn't suspect foul play was involved, despite the fact that they thought the circumstances of Paulie's disappearance were unusual. One park ranger publicly dispelled any suggestion that she might have been attacked by an animal or kidnap. Reason being, according to him, Deep Creek Trail was well-traveled. So I think the implication there was if either of those scenarios had played out, someone should have heard or seen something. Paulie was reportedly between 170 and 180 pounds instead 5 feet 11 inches tall. And yet, according to park rangers, no one other than her two friends even remembered seeing her on the trail the day she vanished, let alone witnessing something untoward happening to her. It seems at that point, authorities' main theory was that she was just lost in the woods somewhere. The NPS speculated that she might have experienced a medically event like a seizure and gotten disoriented. Officials assumed that if that was what happened, it was unlikely she'd gotten very far. According to the coverage, Paulie was also very afraid of snakes, so most people assumed she would have stayed as close to the trail as possible if she'd gotten lost. Not ventured into untamed woods where snakes were more likely to be. But the optimistic outlook that she was just somewhere close by and waiting to be found, Wayne, the longer the search went on. The Monday after she was reported missing, the scent dogs that had been brought in from Virginia returned home. A blog by unsolved Appalachia published years later explained that at one point the dogs had stopped next to a down tree where searchers suspected Paulie might have rested for a bit. But after that one's signal, the animals didn't find her scent anywhere else. So who knows if that was even legit. After the dog handlers left, only a few rangers and volunteers remained in the deep creek area to help look for her. On October 4th, a little over a week into the investigation, a spokesman for the NPS told the press that the official search for Paulie had been called off. He said a few guys would stick around to periodically check area trails, but other than that, most of the search activities that had been going on would be suspended indefinitely. A ranger told the Knoxville News Sentinel, quote, "If she had been in the park, the dogs would have found her. They were well trained. We're not going to be putting in a lot of manpower, but we'll be checking the area daily with only two or three rangers," end quote. An NPS spokesman went on to state that it was the agency's position that Paulie was likely no longer in the park at that point. He admitted they didn't have any concrete evidence that proved that was the case, but there were several factors he suggested had indicated she wasn't there. One, not a single trace of her had been found, not by people who had boots on the ground, nor the search dogs. And two, there was a roadway located near where she disappeared. So the NPS suspected that she might have walked to that road and perhaps gotten into a car. The last quarter mile of her hike would have taken her on that road and cars were allowed to drive there, so it wasn't an unfounded theory. And three, Paulie had relatives in at least three southeastern states, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida. So based on all those facts, it seems that's why the NPS was suggesting she left the park on her own. A ranger who spoke with United Press International about whether Paulie was still in the park said quote, "If she is, then she is trying awfully hard not to be found." But the suggestion that the 58-year-old was hiding from searchers or had chosen to disappear seemed incongruent with the information authorities had uncovered. You see, when investigators took a look inside Paulie and Robert's trailer, They realized she'd left behind several personalities. belongings, including her ID and cigarettes. Her abandoning those kinds of items would suggest she was planning to return. Dot Jackson reported for the Charlotte Observer that Paul had also recently filled a prescription for a tranquilizer. It's unclear from the coverage, though, what this medication was for or if it was a routine thing she would take. Some of the coverage I found like the Charlie project in a blog by Unsolved Appalachia stated that she used volume a few years prior to her disappearance to treat depression, but she reportedly stopped taking that by September 1981. Though same source has also stated that her husband Robert reportedly had a prescription for the same medication, and interestingly, he'd noticed his pills were missing after his wife vanished, but no one knew if she'd taken them, they'd gotten lost, or what. I think the broader point, though, about Paulie having a prescription filled right before she vanished, was that it seemed to indicate she was planning to stick around, not voluntarily disappear. But I think the one clue, above all that pointed toward her having every intention of coming home, was the fact that prior to going hiking, she'd prepared a pot of spaghetti sauce for her and her husband. It was reportedly still sitting on their stove when everyone realized she was missing. So, the question became, if she'd gone through the trouble of making the sauce, why would she have chosen to not come back? It was a detail no one could make sense of. Now, Park Rangers had noted that the weather during the first week she was missing was fairly mild, meaning it wasn't cold, so it seemed unlikely she'd perish from exposure. If the reality was, she'd simply gotten lost in the park, some folks believed it was possible she was still alive. Whereas the more time passed, others said they believed she wouldn't have lasted very long. Basically, everyone had an opinion, but no one knew anything for sure. For several years prior to this, Polly, Robert and their retired friends had been spending summers in the Deep Creek area for an extended period of time. During the winter months, the mountains lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and when summer hit, they headed toward Bryson City, North Carolina. According to coverage by the Knoxville News Sentinel and United Press International, the couple in their group of friends would lease a private track of land near the boundary of the park and live in trailers there for months at a time. That was the only way they could reside in the area for as long as they wanted to without having issues with the NPS. Rangers only allowed campers to reside in Deep Creek campground for certain months of the year, and the mountains and their friends usually stayed longer, so leasing the plot of land adjacent to the park's boundary and doing things their own way was a win-win. Dot Jackson reported for the Charlotte observer that Polly's dad, Fred, and her husband, Robert actually co-owned the parcel of land where the trailer campground was located. In fact, prior to marrying Robert, Polly and her sister Kit had been there with their dad many times, and that seemingly how Polly and Robert became so close. Prior to marrying him, she'd been widowed by two other men, her first husband, who she married in 1951 in North Carolina, had died. And after that, she'd remarried another man from Birmingham, Alabama, who would die in 1970. His obituary says he passed away from a lengthy illness, but later reporting specified it was throat cancer. And it was after that, she'd grown closer with Robert and eventually married him. The couple's friends told the press that the cluster of families who lived in the plot of land Robert and Polly's dad owned were notoriously private and didn't let strangers into their close circle. The mountains and their friends had one hard and fast rule. Never let anyone knew into their trailer compound unless the entire group agreed it was okay. Basically, getting close to newcomers or quickly trusting folks who were unfamiliar to their group was a no-no. Polly's friends told Park staff that because of that, it would have been out of character for her to get into a stranger's car. They suggested she would have only done so if she'd been forced to. Meanwhile, Polly's husband Robert was taking the situation very hard. News coverage from the time states that he had ongoing health issues, including heart problems. And in the wake of his wife's disappearance, he'd been so plagued with worry and I imagine stress that he had to be hospitalized in Bryson City. One article I read said he suffered a stroke, but whatever the specific ailment was, it seems like things never improved for him. Not long after Polly disappeared, he was moved to a nursing home in Jacksonville, where he remained for quite some time. I found an obituary in the Florida Times Union from October 1982 and a find-a-grave profile which states that a man with his exact name died in early October 1982. But I couldn't confirm if that is the same Robert. All the information and details line up, so if it is him, then he didn't live very long after Polly disappeared. Anyway, back in early November 1981, 40 days into the investigation, it wasn't just Robert who was hurting and desperately seeking answers about what happened to Polly. Her sister Kit decided it was time to speak to the press and have her family's wishes heard. According to Dot Jackson's article for the Charlotte Observer that I mentioned earlier, in early November 1981, Polly's sister Kit, who lived in North Carolina, expressed that it had been difficult to even begin the grieving process because there were so many unanswered questions in her sister's case. By that time, pretty much everyone who'd been living on the trailer campground when Polly vanished had left the area. With the seasons changing, the surrounding woods also no longer looked the way they had when she disappeared. Leaves had covered the ground where she'd last been seen and that would likely pose challenges to anyone who wanted to see things as they appeared in September. To make matters worse, the NPS had made no progress in their investigation. Naturally, one would assume they would have leaned on other entities for help, but in this case, that didn't happen. The Swain County Sheriff's Office, which was the local agency in that region, hadn't been initially notified by the NPS that Polly was even missing. It was actually Kit, her sister who'd called the Sheriff's Office at like 10 o'clock at night on September 25th to let them know what was up. No deputies were asked to help out in the search either. To further complicate matters, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, also known as the NCSBI, hadn't been invited to the party either. And because no evidence of foul play had been found, the FBI never came on board. So long story short, the NPS remained adamant that Polly was simply a missing person, and her case would remain listed as such until additional information proved otherwise. The then chief ranger of Great Smoky Mountains National Park told reporter.jaxson in part "There was no indication anywhere that she was abducted or dragged off the trail." But the complete lack of communication from Polly bothered her sister Kit. She told the Charlotte Observer that they'd grown up playing in the woods, and for as long as she could remember, Polly was particularly close with their father. She described her sister as a daddy's girl, and about a month after she disappeared, their dad turned 89 years old. So for Kit, it seemed unimaginable that her sister would have let his birth they pass without so much as a phone call. If in fact, she was just out there living her life. Kit, as well as Polly's stepmother Velma, also told the newspaper that they believed Polly would have been wearing several pieces of jewelry while she was hiking. It was kind of her thing to don a lot of jewels, no matter the situation. And some of her accessories would have included a diamond watch band, her diamond encrusted engagement ring and wedding band, and another diamond ring. So Kit and Velma couldn't help but speculate as to whether someone on the trail who saw Polly with all those valuables might have targeted her. But there just wasn't enough evidence, at least none that investigators could find, pointing toward that scenario. Kit emphasized in her interviews with the Charlotte Observer that in her heart of hearts, she didn't think her sister was still alive anymore, but she was convinced her body was still in the park waiting to be found. She told the newspaper, quote, "I wake up seeing Polly sitting like she's just resting with her back against a tree," end quote. Trula Gudger, one of Polly's two hiking companions, told the Charlotte Observer that in her opinion, her friend's disappearance was likely related to a medical event. She remarked, quote, "I think she is still in those woods. I don't think she walked out of there. What I really think is that something just popped into her head, she had an aneurysm or something and she walked off the trail, and they just never found her," end quote. None of the source material explicitly states this, but I found myself thinking a lot about Trula's suggestion. You see, like I mentioned earlier, deep creek and the other creeks that the trail was near did have some bridges. I wonder if one of the reasons Polly was never found might be because she accidentally fell into one of those waterways and drifted out of the search area. But she did have a medical event, like Trula suggested, and then fell and floated away. That's a scenario that makes a lot of sense with the information we know. But that's just one of many theories that can't be proven. Over the years, there's been some speculation about Polly and Robert's relationship, but according to Dot Jackson's reporting for the Charlotte Observer, the couple's marriage was reportedly good. He told folks that they got along well and there was no reason in his mind why she choose to leave him. It only been married for about six years, but like I said earlier, because her father and Robert were business partners, it seems they'd been in one another's lives for even longer than that. And for any of you wondering if perhaps Robert was involved in Polly's disappearance, I personally don't think that's likely. Remember, he was in his late 70s when she vanished. he was also in poor health. It would be kind of a stretch to think that he could have personally harmed her, just given the circumstances and the fact that there would have been people in their community who might have witnessed a potential incident between them. Sure, anything is possible, but that theory is low on my list. Not to mention, there's nothing in the available source material that supports such a scenario. Anyway, by the end of December 1981, kit and several family members from Charlotte had banded together to raise money for a reward fund. They'd also crafted a letter to North Carolina's then governor to ask him for assistance in a private search. It seems kit was really the tip of the spear with these endeavors because, by that point, she was very frustrated with everything. She told the Asheville citizen times that when she'd call investigators inquiring about the progress of the case, no one would call her back. She'd been told that there was nothing more authorities could do until additional information surfaced, which I have to imagine was extremely disheartening to hear. In the NPS's defense, though, the park's then assistant chief ranger told the newspaper that despite Polly's case appearing to be inactive, he and other park staff were routinely checking areas near where she'd vanished. The problem was, they never found anything. When she disappeared, Polly had been wearing eyeglasses, a pink and white sleeveless shirt, tan slacks, and size 8.5 low-cut shoes. She didn't have a purse or jacket with her, and she also wasn't carrying any cigarettes, which, being that she was a chronic smoker, was a noteworthy detail. After she vanished, there was also no activity on any of her financial accounts, which is usually a bad sign in missing person's cases. So, by the end of November 1982, more than two years into the investigation, the state of North Carolina formally announced a reward for information in the case. But even with that, things remained at a standstill. Another decade went by, and in 1993, with still no answers about what happened to her sister, Kit wrote a letter to the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel. In it, she emphasized that she still believed Polly was in the park somewhere. She was thankful journalists were continuing to keep the story alive, but of course, the pain of not knowing what happened was taxing for her and her family. An obituary I found for Kit from 2009 states that she eventually died at the age of 84. Unfortunately, she never got the answers about her sister's case that she so desperately saw. In the years after that, stories about Polly's disappearance routinely surfaced in news articles about Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but it was always lumped in with the other notorious missing person's cases from the Smokies that preceded her. Dennis Martin, Trunny Lynn Gibson, and so forth. It was only decades after Polly was reported missing that more information about her life and the circumstances leading up to her disappearance emerged. And some of that information is very interesting. I want to briefly back up for just a minute, because context is so crucial in this particular case. In 1981, the Charlotte Observer reported that Polly was very involved in the Bryson City community in North Carolina. At least during the summer months, she was living there and not residing at her floor at home. Dot Jackson reported that the 58-year-old and her father, Fred, regularly attended Victory Baptist Church in Bryson City. And for about four years prior to her disappearance, she'd been volunteering with a hot meal program in the town, which provided food to older adults in the community. Fast forward a few decades, though, and according to that blog, Unsolved Appalachia. It was Polly's volunteer work that became a new point of interest in her case. The coverage explains that normally her daily routine involved going to where she and the other volunteers prepared the food and then passing the meals out to people who needed them. But for some reason, on September 25, 1981, the day she disappeared, Polly veered from her normal routine. She did not volunteer at the hot lunch program that day. Why? No one knows. But the reporting went on to explain that another anomaly occurred at the hot meal program right before September 25. Apparently, in the four years or so that Polly volunteered with that program, she'd never used the phone in the facility. However, on September 24, the day before she vanished, she reportedly placed several calls from that landline. Who did she dial? How long did the calls last? Investigators were never able to answer these questions, because apparently they were unable to figure out who was associated with the numbers she'd called. Shannon Ballard, the host of the Southern Mysteries podcast, reported at least one of the calls was believed to have gone to a local number. But beyond that, the calls were just a mystery. I don't know if the NPS just didn't try hard enough to track down the information or if the phone records were lost or if they just learned about the calls too late. But regardless, what stands out to me most about these calls is that they happened so close to when Polly vanished. As far as I can tell, it doesn't appear that anyone came forward and said like, "Hey, I talked with her that day," or, "Yeah, we chatted and this isn't suspicious." One would think that if you were the person she'd spoken with, you let everyone know that. Author Juanita Baldwin, who co-wrote a book with Esther Grubb, titled Unsolved Disappearances in the Great Smoky Mountains, told WBIRTV that as part of her research, she'd interviewed some of Polly's surviving friends and gone through records that the park serviced kept. After reviewing everything, she strongly suspected that Polly had chosen to vanish. She speculated that the 58-year-old had likely become exhausted with caring for her ailing husband and decided to start a new life. A potential clue that seemed to support Juanita's theory was the fact that way back in April 1982, someone had signed a check under the name Polly Melton and had been successfully cashed somewhere in Birmingham, Alabama. And if you'll remember, Polly's second husband, the one who died from throat cancer, was from Birmingham. And it was reported that up until his death in 1970, while they'd been married, she'd lived in Alabama. But investigators reportedly looked into this mysterious check, and it didn't go anywhere. Juanita Baldwin told WBIR that authorities could never prove if the handwriting was even Polly's. The blog post I mentioned earlier by Unsolved Appalachia stated that the whole check lead basically just ended up being one big dead end. So where does that leave us? Still in the unknown. Some intriguing details I found though about Polly in her life have to do with her and her previous husbands, and they're loose connections to government work. Now I'm not implying that there is a there there, but it's worth following the known facts for a minute. Polly's first husband, this guy named Earl Boseman, worked for the US Army. Her second husband, a man named Tom McEathen, was an administrator for a food services company, but he had a brother who was a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force. Census records show that Polly herself worked as a stenographer, and according to the host of Southern Mysteries podcast, she may have held a position at the Pentagon at some point. Now I wasn't able to corroborate that specific detail about her work history, so take it with a grain of salt. But then again, there isn't very much information out there about Polly's life or career prior to her disappearance. I know she didn't have any children, because she'd been married three times, she'd gone by a few different last names. On top of that, her headstone and marriage records indicate her maiden name was actually Polly's Thelma McAllister. Yet in most of the coverage about her, she's usually referred to as either Thelma or Polly. If her disappearance was a situation where she chose to go missing to possibly reinvent herself, how would she have pulled that off alone? Why would she have done that at 58 years old? There are any number of questions we could ask, but the answers might always be a mystery. If Polly were still alive today, she'd be over a hundred years old. It seems unlikely she's living, but regardless, the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, also known as Namus, and the National Park Service, still have her missing person profile up on their websites. They ask anyone with information or tips to contact great Smoky Mountains National Park headquarters in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Information for that office can be found in the show notes and blog post for this episode. If you find yourself hiking along the Deep Creek Trail anytime soon, remember this call-out. Maybe you might find something worth reporting. Park Predators is an audio check production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com, and you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram @ParkPredators. I think Chuck would approve. (baby crying)