Joie Ruth Armstrong was a 26-year-old naturalist working with the Yosemite Institute when she was murdered in July 1999. She was last seen leaving her Yosemite Valley office about 5 p.m. on July 21 and lived in the Foresta employee cabins near Crane Flat. Park rangers found her body near a stream close to her residence the next morning, July 22; her head was discovered several feet from the body and the scene showed a violent, deliberate attack.

Investigators arrested Cary Stayner, a maintenance worker at the Cedar Lodge near the park, after the discovery. Stayner confessed to Armstrong’s murder and to three earlier killings in the Yosemite area that year. He was convicted and sentenced to death. The case remains one of the most shocking crimes in the park’s history; did anyone who knew Joie or her work in the Yosemite Institute see anything unusual in the weeks before July 21, 1999?