Young Hikers Missing in Joshua Tree Since Thursday [7/27/17]

[Ed]

The sympathetic murder-suicide explanation is a possible one, and certainly the kindest one. I think the Orbeso family is welcoming contact with the media to promote it, and I am not critical, you can't expect them to be objective.

But I am highly skeptical. I would certainly consider taking my own life to avoid a very painful and certain death, but I don't view this situation as being in that category. They knew people would be looking for them, and could find them and save them at any time. I think it takes some physical and psychological strength to kill someone else and then yourself with three pounds of hardware. I am not an expert on dying, but I have seen people die at home and in hospitals, and I think that if you have that much strength, you are not that close to dying.

My thoughts keep going back to the same thing. An accident could immobilize or kill one person, but it is very unlikely to happen to two. One person will remain free to search for a road or trail, or seek a point with a cell phone connection, or find a place where they are very visible, and can stand up, wave and shout. I am not familiar with the area, and am not surprised that people can become lost. But it is not exactly a remote area. There are roads and trails, and a town and cell phone tower to the north. They were young, healthy people and not complete novices.

If it was a sympathetic murder-suicide case, I think I need Cynthia's very plausible speculation that they were messed up by hallucinogens to support it. But if they were doped up, would that support one theory over the other? You would have to know what they took and have some expertise to judge that. And wouldn't whatever they took have worn off by the time a sympathetic murder-suicide made sense to consider?

As for the heat, again I am not an expert, but I think the temperatures were such that they would have died slowly of dehydration, rather than quickly from the direct effects of heat. In other words, there was some time to consider their situation and takes measures to increase their chances of being found by searchers.

[OtherHand]

I might mention a book that could cast some light on the mindsets involved. It's The Devil's Highway by Luis Urrea. It involves a particularly bad season a few years ago with people attempting to cross from Mexico into the US by way of the Arizona desert during which a great many died. The Border Patrol, rather than being cast as villains in the play, went to great efforts to save as many of these people as possible. What makes the story of interest is that it goes into great detail about how exactly people die of dehydration and their terminal behavior. It's probably not what most people think and it isn't pretty. There is no "embracing" involved.

[Ed]

Thanks for the reference, OtherHand. Don't know what is in the book, and don't know anything about the physiology of dying by dehydration. But I suspect that in such situations finger-pointing rather than embracing is highly likely. But maybe young people today are more tolerant, broad-minded and loving.

[Wildhorse]

Some news sources seem to be going along with the sympathetic murder story implying that police have said that. Others say that police are still investigating the reason. The latter is my impression from the sheriff's report.

Ed, I think you have summarized well the reasons to doubt sympathy as the motive.

Otherhand, can you give us more information from the book?

I still wonder if the marshalls are looking for a fugitive drug dealer who may have some responsibility.

[cynthia23]

I'd almost forgotten about the US Marshals, Wildhorse! You're right, we never have received an explanation why they were brought in.

I second you in wondering if OtherHand can tell us more.

One thing I've wondered is if examining the map of the search flights shows whether planes flew over their final location, and if so, when. If the planes did fly over their final location on a particular day (for example, the first Saturday), then we know they were dead before then, since if they were alive, they'd presumably try to signal--or at least not commit suicide. Who would commit suicide when planes were flying around overhead searching for you?

I'm inclined to think they were both dead well before the search began. Why, is a whole other question. I don't buy the 'Mercy Killing' theory in any way, but it's possible that the authorities will latch onto it, because I don't think the legal profession has a term to describe what happened, and they need to find an official explanation and close the case. If it wasn't a planned homicide, or reckless homicide, what was this event?

Just my opinion, of course, but: I definitely don't think it was a consciously planned murder. Rather, I think it was a combination of drug use combined with Orbeso's pre-existing anger or depression that combined into a fatal perfect (sand)storm of disaster. The gun was brought along very much in the way that Chekhov's Gun theory works in stories: once he put it in his backpack, it was inevitable it was going to go off.

But leaving aside Orbeso's psychological issues or dark unconscious motivations, whatever they may or may not have been, there's the drugs. I think they were key to the calamity. I don't know if toxicology tests will be able to find drugs in their bodies anymore, or if they were carrying any drugs on their persons. But even without physical evidence, there's the other facts: the 4 hallucinogens found in the AirBnB, the widespread use of drugs while hiking at JTNP (it's so commonplace and revered a rite in drug culture that there's actually a name for it--it's called The Joshua Tree), that their social media was loaded with a lot of drug references--and last but not least, the first basic fact that they got so badly lost, on a marked trail that thousands of people have previously traversed without losing their way. Why? Probably because they were on a drug or drugs that makes you inattentive and distorts your visual perceptions. Ed, you asked about timing. It may seem odd to us old fogies to think about taking a drug early in the morning, but that's probably what they did--there's numerous references I found online to people taking shrooms with breakfast before starting out to hike or climb around JTNP. If they took shrooms around 7 a.m. the trip would last about six hours or 1pm. By that time, they were likely well and truly lost as well as suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration. But I don't think we should by any means assume that shrooms are all they took. In fact that's unlikely. Many of the accounts I found online, people had taken multiple heavy duty pharmaceuticals. https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments ... _national/ This link was 'mind-blowing' to say the least. It's from a hike in Yosemite, not JTNP, but it gives you an idea. Apparently Yosemite also has an enormous issue with stoned people wandering around.
Here's a link that describes drugging at JTNP , including, alarminly, driving around https://www.shroomery.org/1836/Joshua-Trip I also recommend looking at sites like bluelight or erowid to get a better idea of this particular kind of drug culture. So they may have been on multiple heavy duty hallucinogens and 'dissassociatives' like ketamine or its derivative chemical cousins (very popular now, apparently.)

I could be totally wrong, of course, and maybe they were stone cold sober, or pretty sober, and just somehow badly missed the trail. But that still doesn't explain why Orbeso was so agitated and despondent in a situation they still had some chance of surviving, he shot his friend and himself. But if you combine one or more fairly heavy duty drugs with heat exhaustion and dehydration to create the mother of all bad trips, plus some pre-existing anger or depression, plus a gun .... well, I can see how that would go very, very wrong.

Maybe I've got it all wrong, who knows. But I just can't find any other logical explanation for these disparate and very strange facts. Anyway that's my 2 cents.

[Ric Capucho]

I’m not sure that the discipline they showed to be up and going at 6am aligns with the indiscipline that getting stoned mid-hike would indicate. Seems contradictory.

Why did they leave the trail?

One idea I had is that they wanted to find somewhere far enough off-trail that they could fire off a few fun rounds with that elephant gun without someone hearing it and calling the authorities. Far enough off trail turned out to be too far.

I love the reference to Chekhov’s Gun Theory, by the way.

Ric

[Wildhorse]

I have a few legal/moral questions in case anyone knows the answer.

Does sympathetic murder require a signed consent?

Does the immediate or eventual suicide of a sympathetic murderer compensate for a lack of consent?

Does the family need to consent too, or is the signature of the victim sufficient?

Is consent acceptable when the victim is intoxicated, under duress or incapacitated?

Does consent matter?

Is sympathy itself a license to kill?

I am troubled.

[zippetydude]

The whole thing appears clearly premeditated to me.

As she was his ex, it seems likely that he engineered the whole trip to try and get her back. I would guess she didn't even know he had the gun with him. He most likely took her out on the hike, intentionally went off the trail, asked her to come back to him, and then committed the murder-suicide when she said no.

I can't imagine why she went along. Perhaps they partied together before the romance and still maintained that relationship after they broke up. That's the only thing that I can think of to explain why she went with him in the first place. I believe somewhere it said she had a current boyfriend - it seems strange that he agreed to her going to spend the night and do drugs with another guy. Nothing about this case ever seems to make sense.

z

[Sean]

My understanding is that states won't recognize mercy killing because the concept could then be used as a defense in murder cases, and the state would then be required to prove a negative: that the murder was not a mercy killing. And that is very often impossible to do when there is little or no evidence pointing to motive.

Some states have recognized aid-in-death rights for terminally ill patients. But that is a different matter, where the patient's will is clearly documented and recognized by officials.

Does consent matter?

Does consent to be killed matter? Of course, it does. We have the right to life, unless of course we forfeit that right by killing an innocent person.

Is sympathy itself a license to kill?

Sympathy isn't a license to do anything, let alone kill. It's just an emotion. Emotions are not valid arguments for doing something. Lots of women desperately want a child. That doesn't mean you can rape them.

[Wildhorse]

Z, that explanation is surely plausible.

Thanks, Sean, for the legal assessment.

My impression is that the media is accepting the sympathetic murder explanation matter-of-factly, without any sign of a skeptical or moral wince. Perhaps with such support, more people will murder out of sympathy or as an expression for their love.

Does anyone remember the old movie, They shoot horses, don't they?

I am troubled by this acceptance, but please don't shoot me.

Wildhorse