The Meadow

Park Predators

In June 1983, a human hand and part of an arm were discovered in Summit Meadow, Yosemite National Park, sparking a decades-long investigatio

Key takeaways

• The remains showed signs of freezing and thawing, suggesting they had been in the ground for years.
• Forensic anthropologists estimated the victim was a small-framed woman around 25 years old, weighing about 110 pounds.

Main topics

• Cold case investigation in Yosemite National Park
• Identification of a Jane Doe as Patricia Patty Hicks Dahlstrom

Notable quotes

If you think you may have known or interacted with Patricia Patty Hicks Dahlstrom in the late 1970s or early 1980s, please contact Special Agents with the National Park Services Investigative Services Branch.

Conclusion

Despite decades of investigation, the murder of Patricia 'Patty' Hicks Dahlstrom remains unsolved. While

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Every case on park predators has a twist, but Chameleon takes deception to a whole new level. Hosted by journalist Josh Dean, Chameleon digs into the real stories of people who reinvent themselves through lies, cons, and double lives. If you're ready to explore the world of scam artists and little white lies that spiral into unforgettable scandals, listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:27) Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in California's Yosemite National Park. If you've ever been to this part of North America, then you know just how iconic and popular it is. Yosemite Valley, Bridal Veil Fall, and the granite rock face El Capitan are some of the more well-known attractions in the park. But there are also a ton of other scenic spots in Yosemite's roughly 1,200-square-mile boundary. I went there a few years ago and really found myself drawn to the wilderness areas and numerous meadows. Summit Meadow, where today's story takes place, is right along a roadway called Glacier Point Road. During the winter months, that route closes to the public, but in the spring and summertime, lots of folks drive it to get to Summit Meadow, which is known for being a place you can stretch out, picnic, hike, and take pictures if you're into photography. In late June 1983, visitors to this recreation space discovered something unsettling, a human hand. And that discovery led National Park Service investigators into a bizarre mystery that to this day is as vexing as the day it began. It's my hope that some of you who may recognize any of the places, dates, or names in this episode will give authorities more clues. Clues that might just explain how a woman's hand ended up in one of the most beautiful places in Yosemite National Park. This is Park Predators. Speaker 1 (2:37) On Tuesday, June 28th, 1983, family and friends visiting Summit Meadow and Yosemite National Park were hanging out and having a picnic when a man in the group, this guy named Tom Day, and one of his friend's sons walked off to explore on their own. But not long after leaving the larger group, Tom and the boy came across something suspicious in the ground. They dug at it a little bit and suddenly realized it was a human hand. According to the TV series Wild Crime, which produced a four-part miniseries about this case, the area of the meadow that Tom and his friend's son found the remains in was kind of muddy and near some running water. Horrified by the discovery, Tom and his group quickly contacted the authorities, and in short order, an NPS ranger named Don Quelo arrived on scene. Don's normal patrol jurisdiction covered Summit Meadow, so that's why he was the first ranger in the area. When he took a look at the hand, he realized he needed to request some backup. So he radioed for another ranger to get to the scene. And one of those folks who came was Kim Tucker, another ranger who worked as a criminal investigator. At the time, the NPS didn't have what is now known as its Investigative Services Branch, or ISB. If it had, Kim Tucker would have worked in that division. Anyway, Investigator Tucker processed the scene for evidence and determined that the hand in the mud wasn't just a hand. It was actually a hand and part of a forearm. According to wild crimes coverage, there was a band-aid touching one of the fingers, and from the looks of it, the remains appeared to have been there for quite some time. They weren't skeletonized, but they did show signs of having undergone the process of being frozen and then thawed, likely from enduring seasonal changes in the park. Investigators' goal in 1983 was to try and get a quality hair or blood sample from the tissues to figure out who the hand and forearm belonged to. At a minimum, they wanted to know what the person's race or ethnicity was and what their sex was. While those efforts were underway, Investigator Tucker and other rangers and volunteers combed Summit Meadow. At that point, all they had was the hand and part of the forearm, and they suspected the rest of the person might be elsewhere in the area. So a meticulous search got underway. But unfortunately, no other bones or human remains were recovered. The terrain itself wasn't easy to search, likely because weather conditions had changed the topography over time. Not to mention, when Tom Day and his friend's son found the forearm in hand, they'd had to dig in the ground a little bit to actually unearth it. So unless searchers were doing some light excavation while they scoured the meadow, it's not necessarily surprising to me that they didn't find any other body parts. Anyway, with the search party coming up empty, investigator Kim Tucker set her sights on learning more about the anthropological findings of who the remains belong to. Speaker 1 (5:25) On July 7th, nine days into the investigation, she took the forearm in hand to a forensic anthropologist who concluded that they'd likely come from a small framed woman who was about 25 years old. The anthropologist also estimated the woman weighed about 110 pounds and had died within the last year or so. Curiously, there were no marks on the arm or the bones themselves that indicated they'd been intentionally cut. So that detail, plus the fact that the rest of the woman's remains were unaccounted for, meant that no cause of death could be determined. Even more frustrating for NPS investigators was the fact that there were no missing persons reports that specifically matched the characteristics for the woman whose hand and forearm had been found. So for the next few months, investigator Kim Tucker and park rangers like Don Coelho continued to work the case diligently. But they routinely hit dead end after dead end. By the fall of 1983, the weather had changed and upcoming winter snowfall predictions meant that authorities could no longer physically search Summit Meadow for clues. And unfortunately, the case languished for several more months after that. But things picked up again in the late spring of 1984. That's when Kim Tucker and Don Quelo learned from folks with the California Department of Justice that the infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who'd been convicted in Texas for seven murders, was claiming to have carried out numerous killings, including more than a dozen murders in California. Now, obviously, the NPS took this tip seriously, and Kim Tucker investigated if Lucas could be connected to the Summit Meadow Jane Doe. Former park ranger Dawn Coelho, who was her counterpart, told producers for Wild Crime that because Summit Meadow is covered by so much foliage and has a lot of wildlife activity, it would have been an ideal place for a serial killer like Lucas to dispose of human remains. For a period of time, investigator Tucker reviewed reports from another law enforcement agency about Lucas's documented movements and his associates during the 1980s. What she learned was that he'd been in California cities in the spring and summer of 1982. But those places weren't super close to Yosemite National Park. According to Tucker's interview with Wild Crime, Lucas was connected to the cities of Hemet and Needles, California, which are both several hundred miles southeast of Summit Meadow. So, not close at all. Still, Kim Tucker and Don Coelho wanted to speak with Henry Lee Lucas. So in the fall of 1984, after California's Department of Justice extradited him from Texas, the two investigators interviewed him at the Sacramento County Jail. Over the course of several conversations, he told them that he'd been to Yosemite National Park before at least once, but he pronounced the name of the park wrong, which investigator Tucker thought was odd. But nevertheless, she and her counterpart continued to question him. According to what they told producers for Wild Crime, Lucas's story went like this. He'd picked up a young female hitchhiker some 25 miles from an area