U.S. treasure hunt again turns deadly
Call off search, lives are at risk, police chief says
Forrest Fenn’s promised secret bronze treasure chest — filled with $2 million in gold and jewels — has been luring wide-eyed adventure seekers to the Rocky Mountains since 2010, when the millionaire antiquities dealer wrote a mysterious, clue-filled poem he claimed would lead its witty decoder to the elusive riches.
The goal, Fenn has said, was to get people off the couch and into the wilderness, and tens of thousands heeded the call, writing the man with tales of their harrowing attempts and regretful failures.
Then last summer, the challenge Fenn hoped would grant him immortality claimed the life of one of his most enthusiastic followers, a 54-year-old grandfather who ventured into the New Mexican terrain and was found dead six months later in the Rio Grande.
Now, authorities say, Fenn’s treasure hunt seems to have turned deadly again and they are appealing to him to end it.
On Sunday, officials recovered the body of a man believed to be Paris Wallace, a pastor who went missing last week after his family said he had come to a rugged, mountainous area of New Mexico searching for Fenn’s bronze chest, reported the Daily Sentinel.
New Mexico State Police Lt. Elizabeth Armijo said that authorities found the body about 11 kilometres downstream from the area where Wallace was believed to have been before he disappeared. His backpack was nearby.
“We are still awaiting positive identification on the identity,” Armijo told the Daily Sentinel.
“However, we believe, and all evidence thus far indicates, the deceased is Paris Wallace.”
State police Chief Pete Kassetas told reporters that Fenn should retrieve the treasure from wherever he hid it and stop what he called nonsense and insanity.
“He’s putting lives at risk,” the chief said, noting that he planned to contact Fenn personally to ask him to call off the hunt.
Wallace, the lead pastor at Connection Church in Grand Junction, Colo., was last heard from a week ago. His wife reported him missing after he missed a meeting last Wednesday, and his belongings were later found at a hotel in Espanola, N.M.
Using GPS technology through his cellphone, authorities located the Chevrolet Tahoe Wallace was driving near a bridge that crosses the Rio Grande about 50 miles north of Santa Fe.
Inside the vehicle, Armijo said that officials found a receipt from a local store for rope and other equipment. Near the Rio Pueblo de Taos — a tributary of the Rio Grande — search and rescuers discovered a rock on the riverbank with a rope lashed around it, reported the Daily Sentinel. The rope led across the water.
“Please continue to pray for the Wallace family and praise and thank our Lord for the blessings He provided us through our time with Paris,” said a message posted to the church’s Facebook page.
“My heart and my prayers go out to his family and his church,” Fenn said in a statement to CBS This Morning on Sunday. “It is such a tragedy.”
In a post on mysteriouswritings.com last week, Fenn warned apprehensive hunters of the dangers.
“Please don’t ever overextend yourself,” Fenn wrote. “I was 80 or about when I hid the treasure and it was not a difficult task. I will soon be 87 and I could go back and get it if I were so inclined, I think.”
It has been nearly a year since the body of Randy Bilyeu, the 54-year-old grandfather, was finally recovered from the Rio Grande. Bilyeu, also from Colorado, had travelled to New Mexico with his dog, Leo, a raft, a wet suit, a GPS and maps of the area, as The Washington Post reported.
Bilyeu’s ex-wife filed a missing person’s report in mid-January 2016, about 10 days after he set off on his adventure.
The next day, the man’s raft and his dog, which was alive, were found. Search crews, including fellow treasure hunters and Fenn, looked for Bilyeu for weeks.
His body wasn’t recovered until the following July.
At the time, the man’s exwife, Linda Bilyeu, had harsh words for Fenn.
“There’s no treasure — it’s not real. He lost his life for a hoax,” she told the Albuquerque Journal last summer. “We’re disappointed that he lost his life because of a treasure hunt.”