In the vast, rugged wilderness of the American West, stories of people vanishing without a trace are unsettlingly common. But few are as tragic and profoundly mysterious as the case of the Cowden family. On Labor Day weekend in 1974, a young family drove into the forested mountains of Southern Oregon for a weekend of camping and fishing, only to seemingly dissolve into the dense woods. The discovery of their abandoned campsite launched a massive search that would transition from a rescue mission to a grim recovery, and finally, to a baffling, unsolved murder mystery that continues to haunt the region to this day.
A Final Camping Trip
In the late summer of 1974, Richard “Dick” Cowden, 28, his wife Belinda, 22, and their two small children, five-year-old David and five-month-old Melissa, were living a quiet life in White City, Oregon. On Friday, August 30, they packed up their green 1956 Ford station wagon for a family camping trip. Their destination was the Carberry Creek area near Copper, Oregon, a familiar and beloved spot nestled deep within the Siskiyou National Forest.
On Sunday, September 1, Belinda’s mother, who lived nearby, drove up to their campsite to visit. She found her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren enjoying their weekend getaway. It was a perfectly normal, happy scene. It would be the last time anyone saw them alive.
The family was expected home that Sunday evening so Richard could return to his job at a lumber mill the next day. When they failed to show up, their families grew concerned. A search was quickly organized. When authorities reached the Cowden’s campsite, they found a scene that was both ordinary and deeply disturbing.
The family’s station wagon was parked at the site, with one of its doors left open. Their tent was set up, and personal belongings, including Richard’s wallet and Belinda’s purse, were undisturbed. A half-eaten container of prunes for baby Melissa sat out, and her diapers were laid on the car’s hood. The family’s small Basset hound puppy was found wandering the area, hungry but unharmed. The only thing missing from the idyllic scene was the family itself. There were no signs of a struggle, no blood, no indication of foul play—just an unnerving, silent emptiness.
A Frantic Search and a Grim Discovery
The disappearance of a young family sparked one of the largest search and rescue operations in Oregon’s history. Hundreds of volunteers on foot and horseback, aided by helicopters, scoured the dense, mountainous terrain. But days turned into weeks with no sign of the Cowdens. The search was eventually scaled back as winter approached, and the family’s fate remained a terrifying mystery.
For seven agonizing months, there were no answers. Then, in April 1975, two gold prospectors hiking in a remote, rugged canyon about seven miles from the abandoned campsite made a gruesome discovery. Inside a small cave, huddled together, were the remains of Belinda Cowden and her two children, David and Melissa.
The scene told a tragic story. Autopsies revealed that Belinda had been bludgeoned to death. Five-year-old David had been shot multiple times with a .22 caliber weapon. The cause of death for baby Melissa could not be definitively determined due to the advanced state of decomposition, but her death was ruled a homicide. The most unsettling part of the discovery was who was missing: Richard Cowden. His body was not in the cave, and an exhaustive search of the surrounding area turned up no trace of him.
The Investigation and a Prime Suspect
The case was now officially a triple homicide and a missing person investigation. The question that tormented investigators was what had happened to Richard Cowden. Had he been a victim, his body disposed of elsewhere? Or was it possible that he was somehow responsible for the deaths of his own wife and children before disappearing? The latter theory was quickly dismissed by everyone who knew the family. Richard was described as a devoted husband and a loving father with no history of violence.
The focus of the investigation soon turned to a convicted killer named Dwain Lee Little. Little, who had been paroled from prison just months before the Cowdens disappeared, was a known predator who frequented the same remote wooded areas. In a chillingly similar case, he had murdered a young woman named Orla Fay Fipps, whose body was found in the same region just two years prior.
Little was brought in for questioning about the Cowden case. He denied any involvement and, despite the strong suspicions of law enforcement, there was not enough physical evidence to charge him. He was eventually sent back to prison for violating his parole and died there in 2017, taking any secrets he may have had about the Cowden family to his grave.
An Unsolved Mystery
Today, more than fifty years later, the Cowden family murder case remains officially open but unsolved. The mystery of what happened in those woods on that September weekend endures. Where is Richard Cowden? Was he the first victim, his body hidden so well it has never been found? Or did he somehow escape the initial attack, only to be hunted down and killed elsewhere?
The prevailing theory among investigators is that the family had a random, tragic encounter with a predator, likely Dwain Lee Little. It’s believed the killer may have come upon their campsite and, for reasons unknown, decided to abduct and murder them.
The remote cave where Belinda and her children were found, the missing father, and the lack of definitive evidence have left the case frozen in time, a heartbreaking testament to a family trip that ended in unimaginable horror. The dense forests of the Siskiyou Mountains hold their secrets close, and the fate of the Cowden family remains one of the Pacific Northwest’s most haunting and enduring mysteries.
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