Part 1
Some names and identifying details in this account were changed for reasons of anonymity and confidentiality. Not all photographs associated with the case were taken at the scene.
On September 14, 2007, 32-year-old Harold Moore parked his pickup truck at a remote off-ramp along the Taylor Highway in Alaska and walked into the wilderness. He did not return.
Moore was an experienced hunter and a pipeline welder who had lived in Alaska his entire adult life. Colleagues described him as methodical, physically tough, and reserved. For 5 years he had taken an annual solo caribou hunt in the same region. That year’s trip had been planned for 6 months.
At 6:30 a.m. on September 14, Moore left his home in a suburb of Tok, kissing his wife, Sarah Moore, as she slept. He loaded a tent, low-temperature sleeping bag, 10 days of food, and fuel cans into his dark blue Ford F-550 pickup.
At 7:15 a.m., security cameras recorded him in the parking lot of Last Frontier Supply, the final major outfitting store before the highway stretched into deep wilderness. The grainy footage showed a tall man in camouflage entering with a steady gait. Store owner Jim Kowalski later told police that Moore appeared calm and focused. He purchased a box of .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition and 2 pairs of thick wool socks. He asked about the dirt road near Chicken Creek and whether recent rains had damaged it. He paid in cash at 7:28 a.m. and left.
It was the last confirmed sighting of him in a populated area.
When Moore failed to check in as agreed on September 21, Sarah contacted the sheriff. Given the remoteness of the region north of Tok—thousands of square miles of tundra, sparse spruce, and dwarf birch without cell service—authorities initiated an immediate search.
On September 24, a patrol plane pilot spotted sunlight reflecting off glass in dense forest approximately 5 miles from the Taylor Highway. Ground teams reached the coordinates 4 hours later.
The truck was found concealed beneath cut spruce branches, parked deep in shadow. The doors were locked. The interior was orderly. The concealment suggested deliberate action consistent with hunters hiding vehicles from vandals.
On September 25, searchers located Moore’s campsite 3 miles east of the truck. The tent stood upright with pegs firmly driven into moss. A sleeping bag lay spread inside. Boots and a gas burner were arranged nearby. It appeared as if he had stepped away briefly.
His rifle was missing, as were his hunting knife and binoculars.
Tracking dogs followed a scent northeast across swampy lowland toward rocky hills. Heavy boot impressions marked the moss at regular intervals, showing a steady, unhurried pace. The trail continued for 3 miles until it reached a steep scree of sharp slate. At the edge of the stone field, the tracks stopped.
The dogs refused to proceed over the rock. A 500 ft radius was searched. No blood, no shell casings, no torn clothing, no signs of struggle. No tracks of other people. No evidence of a bear attack. Moore’s wallet and documents were left in the truck. Expensive navigation devices remained in the tent.
Search teams expanded operations to a 20-mile radius over the next 2 weeks. In mid-October, heavy snowfall buried the region. The search was suspended. Moore was listed as missing, presumed dead.
The winter of 2008 was among the harshest in decades. February temperatures in central Alaska did not rise above -40° F. Travel was rare outside settlements.
On March 4, 2008, 2 trapper brothers, Michael and Steven Holden, rode snowmobiles through the Black Hills area to check trap lines. Around 2:00 p.m., Michael noticed a thin column of gray smoke rising from a snow drift.
The brothers shut off their engines and descended cautiously with carbines in hand. A ventilation pipe protruded from beneath snow. Beneath it was a reinforced dugout structure camouflaged with sod and branches. The entrance was covered with frost-coated elk hide.
Behind the dugout stood 6 narrow cages welded from rusty rebar and secured to metal poles driven into frozen ground. Five were empty. Snow had drifted into them.
In the sixth, something moved.
Inside, crouched on rotted straw, was an emaciated man covered in dirt and soot. Tangled hair and a thick beard obscured his face. Rags were tied to his body with rope. Frostbite blackened his hands and feet.
An aluminum bowl filled with frozen raw meat sat in front of him. The trappers identified the meat as beaver by its musk odor.
When illuminated by flashlight, the man did not speak or ask for help. He shielded the bowl with his body and emitted a low growl, baring his teeth.
A wide leather collar encircled his neck. Attached was a brass tag engraved with a single word: Leader.
Despite his condition, the trappers recognized his face from news coverage months earlier.
The man was Harold Moore.
Part 2
On March 5, 2008, a medical evacuation helicopter retrieved Moore from the Black Hills. According to the pilot’s report, Moore exhibited extreme aggression. Paramedics restrained him and administered a double dose of sedatives after he attempted to bite responders.
At Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, his weight was recorded at 112 lb. He had weighed over 200 lb 6 months earlier.
Doctors documented multiple fractures of finger phalanges on both hands. The bones had fused improperly at unnatural angles. His back and thighs bore deep, old scars consistent with repeated strikes from a flexible object such as a whip or heavy leather strap.
His mental state was severely compromised. He refused to sleep in a bed, instead curling on the bathroom floor. He did not speak in coherent language. When addressed in a harsh tone by male staff, he dropped to the floor and pressed himself flat in a posture of submission.
Forensic testing of the bowl’s contents confirmed raw beaver and moose meat mixed with animal fat, typical sled dog feed.
Stomach lavage revealed small bone fragments not belonging to beaver or moose. On March 10, an emergency report identified the fragments as human finger phalanges. Some showed signs of heat exposure; others were splintered.
The case shifted from suspected kidnapping to suspected serial murder.
On March 12, investigators returned to the dugout. Beneath larch floorboards they found a sealed plastic container wrapped in tarpaulin. Inside were magazines about the Yukon Quest sled dog race from the 1980s and a black-bound notebook.
The author signed entries with the pseudonym Caillou.
The diary described a philosophy: dogs were weak; humans were more enduring. Fear was described as fuel. Victims were given nicknames such as Red, Lame, Runner, and Leader.
Entries referenced rejection of “Red” after a broken foot and using the body as meat. Harold appeared as Leader in recent months, praised for endurance but criticized for insufficient obedience.
Geographic references pointed investigators toward the Tanana River Basin.
On April 5, 2008, 20 officers and federal agents were deployed by helicopter to coordinates near an abandoned trading post 40 miles from the nearest road.
The site contained massive wooden pillars arranged in a circle, each fitted with heavy chains and collars. The ground inside was trampled solid.
Nearby shallow graves contained 5 male bodies reported missing between 1999 and 2007. Autopsies revealed skeletal deformities consistent with prolonged forced labor pulling heavy loads. One 19-year-old victim from Oregon had a square hole in his frontal skull consistent with a hammer strike used in livestock euthanasia.
Investigators concluded the buried bodies were victims who had failed to meet the perpetrator’s standards.
On April 10, 2008, a fingerprint lifted from a jar of bear fat matched 50-year-old Arthur Brennan, a former professional dog racer disgraced in 1995 after beating his dogs to death during a qualifying race. Brennan had disappeared into the wilderness afterward.
A statewide manhunt began.
Meanwhile, Harold Moore began uttering sled commands in hospital: “Haw,” “Gee,” “Go,” “Easy.” A psychiatrist placed a marker in his hand and instructed him to draw. Moore sketched a route ending at a split-peaked mountain emitting smoke.
Geologists identified it as Mount Sanford near the Nebesna Glacier.
On April 12, 2008, helicopters located a sled on a glacial plateau.
A woman, harnessed on all fours, pulled a wooden sled while Arthur Brennan stood atop it with a whip.
Officers intercepted. Brennan fired a rifle and was shot in the shoulder by a sniper. He was captured.
The woman, a 24-year-old German tourist missing for a month, exhibited severe trauma. Her hands were lacerated. Her muscles were locked in a quadrupedal posture. A collar had embedded into infected skin at her neck.
Brennan was charged with 5 counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping for slave labor.
Psychiatric evaluations declared him suffering from irreversible paranoid schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. On July 15, 2008, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a federal hospital in Colorado.
On May 20, 2009, he was found dead in solitary confinement after gnawing through his radial arteries.
The case was closed.
Part 3
In 2010, a journalist interviewed Harold Moore at his home outside Anchorage. His wife had filed for divorce in 2009, stating in court that the man she married was gone and that she feared sleeping beside him.
Moore had regained weight and physical health but retained jerky, hyper-alert movements. He refused to allow the journalist inside the house. He spoke slowly with long pauses.
When asked about the cold and pain, he said that was not the worst part. The worst part, he explained, was the moment he wanted to please his captor. He described feeling pride when given the collar labeled Leader.
“He didn’t just break me,” Moore said. “He rewrote me.”
Asked whether he missed the wilderness, Moore looked toward distant mountains. He inhaled deeply and stated that in the forest he knew his place.
The interview ended abruptly when Moore stood and walked into the yard. From his vehicle, the journalist observed him kneel into the snow, curl into a tight ball, and lie motionless, staring at the road.
The case remains a record of prolonged captivity, forced labor, homicide, and psychological degradation in remote Alaska. Investigators concluded that Brennan had replaced sled dogs with abducted humans, subjecting them to systematic training, starvation, beatings, and execution when they failed.
Harold Moore survived physically.
The long-term effects of captivity persisted.
The wilderness where he vanished remained unchanged.
