Thirteen Years on the Mountain: The Unfinished Story of Samuel and Simone Jones
GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, Texas — On August 8, 2000, Houston high school teacher Samuel Jones loaded camping gear into his truck, checked his route on a map, and promised his wife, Eleanor, that he would call from the top of Guadalupe Peak — the highest point in Texas. His 14-year-old daughter, Simone, an aspiring artist, was eager to sketch the Milky Way from the summit.
They never came home.
For 13 years, their disappearance was an enduring ghost story in the West Texas desert: a father and daughter swallowed by heat, rock, and silence. Officially, it was labeled a tragic accident — two inexperienced hikers lost in unforgiving terrain.
In September 2013, the narrative changed.
A Discovery Off Any Trail
Two hikers bushwhacking far from any marked route spotted something impossible: a shredded blue tent clinging to a cliffside ledge, anchored by professional climbing bolts. Inside were two sleeping bags, backpacks crumbling with age — and skeletal remains of an adult male and an adolescent female, huddled together.
Dental records confirmed they were Samuel and Simone.
For Detective Aaron Miller of the Culver County Sheriff’s Office, who inherited the cold case, the scene raised immediate questions. Samuel wasn’t a technical climber. The ledge was inaccessible without specialized gear. “It didn’t look like where you’d camp if you were lost,” Miller said. “It looked like where you’d hide — or be hidden.”
Evidence in the Bones
A forensic anthropologist found the years had stripped away most evidence. Still, Samuel’s skeleton told a partial story: hairline fractures in his forearm and ribs consistent with defensive wounds, and a transverse fracture in his leg that could have come from a direct blow with a heavy object.
“This didn’t fit a simple fall,” Miller told Eleanor.
A Daughter’s Sketchbook
The most compelling clue came from Simone herself. Inside her weather-worn backpack, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, was her sketchbook. Document restoration specialists salvaged half the pages.
Amid drawings of horned lizards and desert vistas was a simple trail scene: Samuel and Simone from behind, and — in the distance — a man partially hidden behind a boulder, wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
Beneath him, in faint, looping handwriting: Caleb.
A Memory Resurfaces
Eleanor remembered a crackling satellite-phone call Samuel made on their first day. He mentioned “a strange run-in” with a local man who told them to turn back, claiming part of the park “wasn’t for tourists.” Samuel had brushed it off as a grumpy hermit.
Now, Miller saw a connection: a territorial local, hostile to outsiders, who knew the back trails.
The Name Behind the Hat
Weeks of combing through old park records turned up an overlooked 1999 harassment complaint. A family from California said they’d been threatened by an unofficial trail guide who claimed they were trespassing. His name: Caleb Brody.
The ranger who dismissed the complaint — citing “insufficient evidence” — was Ranger Thompson, the same official who had quickly wound down the Jones search in 2000.
Brody had lived in a cabin bordering the park, worked odd jobs for a concessionaire, and was known to locals as reclusive and volatile. He left the area in 2001, leaving no trace.
A Lead in Oregon — and a Dead End
In 2013, Miller’s team found Brody living off-grid in the Oregon wilderness. Under questioning, Brody denied ever meeting the Joneses. Shown Simone’s drawing, he shrugged: “Lots of people wear hats.”
Without a confession, physical evidence, or witnesses, the district attorney declined to press charges. The 1999 complaint, Brody’s history, and the sketch were circumstantial.
Bias in the Early Search
Miller also interviewed the now-retired Ranger Thompson, who maintained the 2000 search had followed protocol. When pressed about the harassment complaint, Thompson was dismissive — and made a telling remark: “People like that… get in over their heads.”
To Eleanor, it confirmed what she’d long suspected: her Black husband and daughter were never seen as seasoned hikers, but as “city people” who didn’t belong. That prejudice, she believes, cut their search short and allowed a killer to escape.
Case Closed — Officially
The case returned to cold-case status. Brody remains free. Thompson lives in Arizona.
Eleanor buried her husband and daughter side by side under oak trees in a small Houston cemetery. Among the few personal effects she kept was Simone’s restored sketchbook — with its final page, a charcoal-and-white rendering of the Milky Way.
“He took her life, but he didn’t take that moment from her,” Eleanor said.
Justice Beyond the Courtroom
With the law at a dead end, Eleanor has turned to public telling. She names Brody and Thompson directly, determined that their roles — active or through neglect — are part of the record.
“The justice system failed us,” she said. “But I have the truth. I have my daughter’s testimony in graphite and charcoal. They will face that.”
She calls Simone’s sketch “a map we didn’t know we had,” and tells their story as both warning and memorial.
“Justice doesn’t always come from a courtroom,” Eleanor said. “Sometimes it comes from telling the story so loudly and so clearly that it can never be silenced again.”