Four People Died Finding Treasure Worth Millions Hidden In The Rockies By An Ambitious Man
Anyone up for a dangerous game of treasure hunt? This story will leave you bewildered because no one knows what happened to the four men who mysteriously died while finding a buried treasure worth millions. Meet 80-year-old man Forrest B. Fenn who decided to hide a chest filled with gold coins, rare antiques, and diamonds, worth $2 million in 2010, for a lucky winner to keep after solving clues from Fenn’s poem. But the cost of finding it? Life.
Being the son of a school principal, Fenn, who was brought up in Temple, Texas, was never interested in pursuing education so college was out of question. In his memoir he claims to have come from a very poor family, however, despite living in poverty, his family usually spent their annual vacations in Yellowstone National Park. Fenn was so ambitious that with his brother’s help he built a plane, which eventually sparked an interest in his adult life.
Then on December 27th, 1953, Fenn married his young love Peggy Jean Proctor and began his career as Major Fenn with the U.S. Air Force that lasted nearly two decades. During his tenure as a fighter pilot for jet F-100, he was decorated three times for the courage he showed during the Vietnamese war in 1968. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross twice and a Silver Star once for risking his life to destroy enemy supply routes.
After retiring from the U.S. Air Force, Fenn, his wife, and two daughters moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he founded his antiques and art gallery business, Fenn’s Santa Fe Trading Company. Celebrities like Michael Douglas, Jessica Lange, and Jackie Onassis frequented his establishment. In 2010, he published a book titled ‘The Thrill of the Chase’ where Fenn revealed the big treasure hunt challenge.
In the book, Fenn included a poem that allegedly contained nine perplexing clues that would disclose the location of the buried treasure worth $2 million. After publication, Fenn added two new clues to aid ambitious adventurers in their search to find the hidden treasure. But what inspired Fenn to hide the treasure?
In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with cancer that led him to begin the real-life treasure hunt. His final wish was to bury the treasure and die next to it, however, his cancer relapsed, but the hunt remained. Naturally, a truckload of people were interested in finding the treasure supposedly buried in the Rocky Mountains. But things quickly turned sinister when four people died while searching for the coveted treasure.
Randy Bilyeu’s body was found on the 14th January 2016, Jeff Murphy and Paris Wallace’s bodies were found in June 2017, and finally, Eric Ashby, who’s body was found in July 2017. Fenn naturally received a lot of criticism after these deaths and was literally implored to reveal the location to avoid more deaths. Fenn, on the other hand, refused to reveal the location and to this date, no one has found the hidden treasure worth $2 million.
