The Searches

Park Predators

Park rangers in Pennsylvania discovered an abandoned car, a dead dog, and two missing campers at Gifford Pinchot State Park in June 2020, sparking a complex investigation into the disappearance of Lauren Gallagher and her partner

Key takeaways

• Park rangers found an abandoned Ford Taurus, a deceased Shiba Inu named Sashi, and two missing campers at Gifford Pinchot State Park on June 8, 2020.
• Forensic analysts discovered incriminating iPhone searches on Jolie Harris's device, including queries about domestic violence murder percentages, antifreeze poisoning symptoms, and windpipe diagrams.

Main topics

• Murder investigation and park ranger discovery
• Digital forensics and incriminating internet searches

Notable quotes

"Every trail leads somewhere, but some don't end in the wilderness."

Conclusion

The episode highlights how digital footprints can unravel complex crim

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Every trail leads somewhere, but some don't end in the wilderness. They lead beyond this world. On So Supernatural, hosts Rasha Pecoraro and Yvette Gentile investigate UFO sightings, alien encounters, and the possibility that we're not as alone as we think. Every Friday, they unravel the theories behind the strangest cosmic mysteries and unknown tales. If you're ready to look beyond the trail and see the night sky differently, Listen to So Supernatural wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:34) Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in Gifford Pinchot State Park in southern Pennsylvania. According to the website for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, this full-service park makes up nearly 2,400 acres of scenic attractions and farmland that's been left abandoned to reintroduce local wildlife and vegetation. The main attraction is Pinchot Lake. a 340-acre body of water that you can boat on, swim in, fish at, and picnic around. The park was officially dedicated in 1961 in honor of a former state governor, Gifford Pinchot, who was a lifelong conservationist and forester. He was also a personal friend of the conservation goat, Theodore Roosevelt. And together, these guys managed to get more than 200 million acres of national forest under scientific management, a.k.a. untouchable to commercial developers. One place that visitors can stay while enjoying the park is a designated campground in York County, aptly named the Gifford Pinchot State Park Campground. And it was there in the late spring of 2020 that the eerie discovery of an abandoned vehicle, a dead dog, and two missing women got the attention of park rangers and Pennsylvania State Police troopers. But as authorities would soon find out, nothing that officials found at this scene was as it seemed. And the truth was far darker than anyone could imagine. This is Park Predators. Speaker 2 (2:16) Shortly before 1130 on Monday morning, June 8th, 2020, park rangers at Gifford Pinchot State Park in Pennsylvania were making their rounds through the campground when they noticed something unusual at campsite number 236. Pulled into the area was a 1998 blue Ford Taurus sedan, which rangers assumed likely belonged to the two campers who checked into that campsite the previous Friday, June 5th. The guests were 40-year-old Jolie Harris and 37-year-old Lauren Gallagher. But when rangers checked the women's camping reservation, it showed that they were due to check out the day prior, Sunday, June 7th. So their vehicle still being parked at the campsite on Monday morning, the 8th, meant they were overstaying their allotted time at the campground. And as the rangers looked around, they noticed some other things were kind of off. A few of the women's personal items were still there. indicating that they didn't appear to be in the process of packing up or about to leave. Even stranger, they were nowhere to be found. So, likely sensing something was amiss, the Rangers contacted troopers with a Pennsylvania State Police station in York County to come to the scene and check things out. According to an affidavit of probable cause, a trooper would later file in this case. When police arrived on scene, they discovered what they described as suspicious items in the Ford Taurus. And when they ran the registration for that car, it came back as belonging to Lauren's dad, Ron Gallagher. So there was no more doubt that Lauren and Jolie were likely the people who'd abandoned the vehicle at the campsite. But the questions were, why? And where were they now? To try and get some answers, troopers executed an exigent search on the car to see if it held any clues. An exigent search, by the way, just means that due to the emergency nature of the situation and the fact that Lauren and Jolie were both missing, police were allowed to enter their car without a formal warrant to hopefully learn more information about what had happened to them. Once inside, troopers found an assortment of stuff that belonged to the women, along with a black iPhone. They also discovered several receipts for purchases like gas and food that indicated Jolie and Lauren had made their way from the Philadelphia area to York County starting on June 5th. All the receipts tied back to a bank account that was in Jolie's name. Also amidst the items in the car, troopers came across the pair's deceased pet, a Shiba Inu named Sashi. When authorities reviewed the women's campsite reservation, they learned that Jolie was the main point of contact for it because she listed her name and phone number on the paperwork. And I say paperwork, but in actuality, according to what troopers explained in their probable cause affidavit, the women booked their campsite online using Jolie's bank account information. So technically there was no physical paper trail for their reservation, but you get my point. Anyway, after that, or maybe around the same time, authorities conducted what they described in their affidavit as an extensive search for both women. Coverage by the York Daily Record explained that the effort included quite a few troopers and search and rescue dogs. Investigators also spoke with several people in the area, one of whom said they'd seen a heavyset woman with dark hair walking back and forth between Campsite 236 and the Blue Ford Taurus. Unfortunately, though, that description wasn't the most helpful because a heavyset woman with dark hair actually described both Jolie and Lauren. So without any further specificity, it was hard for police to know which one of them this witness might have seen. And as far as any standout clues, there weren't many. No one had reported hearing any kind of disturbance or argument at the women's campsite in the days prior to June 8th, and no local police or park rangers had been called to the area during that time. So while some troopers continued to scour the campground, Others made plans to travel about two hours east to where Lauren's parents, Ron and Georgiana Gallagher, lived in Delaware County. Per my interview with Georgiana, she and Ron first spoke with investigators on Tuesday, June 9th. They'd not been home on Monday because they'd actually been at an area hospital where Ron was scheduled to have a stent surgery, which was going to require him to stay overnight Monday into Tuesday. While they'd been gone, one of Georgiana's nieces had watched their house for them. And she'd actually been the person to answer a phone call from Pennsylvania State Police troopers on Monday, informing the family that Ron's car had been found at the state park. Georgiana told me that she learned about the car being found while at the hospital with Ron on Monday. But because of everything that was going on with Ron and his surgery, life just got busy. So it wasn't until Tuesday, while waiting for Ron to come home, that police showed up to their house, where she returned to on Monday night, and told her what was going on. When her husband eventually arrived, she had to break the news to him that something big had happened. And by that time, there was a lot to share. Because in between Monday morning and Tuesday, when authorities met with the Gallaghers, they'd made some major headway in the case. They'd gathered a lot of important evidence, and most crucial of all, They'd found Jolie and Lauren. According to the police's affidavit of probable cause that I mentioned earlier, a Monday night around 8.30 p.m., so this was several hours after Jolie and Lauren were designated as missing, a guy camping in Gifford Pinchot State Park had called 911 to report that he'd found what he believed was a body underneath a blanket in a wooded area near his campsite. As he was speaking with a dispatcher, he walked over to take a closer look and figure out if the person under the blanket was hurt. But as he was doing that, a woman pulled the blanket down and uncovered her face. There, looking up at him, were two women, one alive and one dead. The woman who'd uncovered her face said her name was Jolie Harris, and she claimed that she and the dead woman who was lying next to her had been assaulted and that she was bleeding, quote, everywhere. When state police troopers got to the scene a short time later, they examined Jolie and the area where she and her companion had been found under the blanket. But they immediately noticed two things that stood out. Jolie didn't have any injuries that were actively bleeding. But the other woman, well, she was in far worse shape. State police wrote in their reports that the deceased woman was later identified as Lauren. She had a large bloody bruise on her forehead, and she also had a deep cut across her neck. In the same general area where her body was found, police collected a black rock that they described as a geode. And it was the only rock like it in the area, meaning it seemed sort of out of place. And that makes sense because for context, a geode is a spherical type rock that has a hollow inside filled with crystals like quartz or amethyst. Sometimes the insides of these rocks are super colorful. I often see them for sale online or