I don't think the boy's disappearance had anything to do with him coming in contact with an animal (bear, cougar, snake, etc.). If such an encounter took place, his body would no doubt have been found in that immediate area. In addition, the sound of an attack by a large animal should have resulted in enough noise to have been heard by the family members and others who may have been closeby.
The Smokey Mountains bring many people to that location. Most are visitors there to take in the wonder of it all, but there are those who use such settings for their criminal activities. The outdoors - especially in a place as large as the Smokies - provide those who think in such ways as a better place to abduct a child than a shopping mall or a playground. I tend to think abduction when no body is found after a certain period of time. I really doubt the story of the guy who said he came across a child's skeleton years later, but was afraid to admit it because he was there doing something illegal. If he had that kind of a find, all he had to say was that he was there just enjoying the park.
I don't know if this is still the case (or was in 1969), but the park has used persons who were incarcerated in the area to perform clean-up and similar duties there. I assume such individuals were not being incarcerated for a violent offense, but it's just an example of persons of a criminal mindset being mixed into that setting.
Good post Cincinnati Kid!
So you do not believe the skeleton story at all? I still kind of do, because why would John Doe say that otherwise? Maybe the family does not believe it either. What is strange, and the thing that puts doubt on this credibility is, "I am not gonna report it, because I fear being prosecuted for hunting guising, a misdemeanor offense." And let's say that this alleged skeleton story happened in, 1972. We don't have an exact year. And this guy waits from 1969 to 1985 to report it? If you are going to bring about closure to a case as important and tragic as Dennis Martins' you don't wait over 15 years to come forward!
Now we are back to the abduction theory, and we know that Dennis was not particularly fearful of people so yes he could have tragically been enticed by a stranger. But don't you think that his screams and crying would have been heard by the family members? How would an abductor carry a child through rugged terrain? Wouldn't Dennisbe crying, yelling at the top of his lungs in fear in an abduction situation
Has anyone read Ranger McCarter's account of the Dennis Martin Case, in his book,
Lost: Disappearances in the Great Smokey Mountains? I am not sure on this, but I think there was a little boy who went missing in the Smokies way back around 1919. He vanished as his mother was hanging out clothes and went into her cabin for a second. I believe his name was Abe Ramsey. But I don't know if he was found or not.
I bring up this other 1919 incident because in my view, it does only take a matter of seconds to be unaware of something in an area as vast as the Great Smokey Mountains. It would also be interesting to learn the nature and extent of Dennis' disability. If he was diagnosed with a learning disability, I know someone, who also as a visual perception deficit. This is when people can't judge distances, directions, and places in their mind in relation to their environment. In other words, they have no "Mental Map Abilities."
Every time I look at the millions of trees in the Smokies, those areas are so dense with thicket that a small child could very easily become lost just by naturally walking around. Now if a person has some kind of visual perception impairment, just magnify the difficulty that they would have getting around from place to place. And now picture them doing the same thing in bad weather. Now account for their vulnerability to environmental hazards and potentially crazy people who might be in the area. All of these are serious concerns in this very sad case.
Cincinnati Kid, what's your take on the shoe print, and the scream the witness heard several hours later on the day Dennis vanished? What about the unkempt man the witness saw?
Satch