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The tragic disappearance of Carol Turner in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

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Carol Turner, disappeared January 31, 1971, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Ajo Mountains, Arizona.

Revised January 2024

Carol Turner, 32, drove to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on January 31, 1971. She was a postgraduate student at the University of New Mexico, a keen hiker, and a lover of fauna, flora, and the outdoors. The visit to the Monument, surrounded by the famous Organ Pipe Cactus, was the last time she was ever seen. This case has many puzzling aspects, and search and rescue teams reported strange experiences whilst on the operation.

There have been many strange disappearances in Arizona, including Paul Fugate, Morgan Heimer, GPS Joe and recently, in August 2020, Khay Welch.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Ajo Mountains

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is a U.S. national monument and UNESCO biosphere reserve located in extreme southern Arizona that shares a border with the Mexican state of Sonora. It is 517 sq mi (1,340 km2) in size. The park is the only place in the United States where the organ pipe cactus grows wild. Along with organ pipe, many other types of cacti and other desert flora native to the Yuma Desert section of the Sonoran Desert region grow in the park. It is bordered to the northwest by Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and to the east by the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation.

Organ Pipe Cactus in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Organ Pipe Cactus in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

In 1937, the land was officially opened as a national monument and is in the area of the Little Ajo Mountains in extreme western Pima County, Arizona. The city of Ajo sits on the northeast of this small mountain range. The mountain range and city take their name from the Spanish word for garlic.

The peaks in the Little Ajo Mountains include the isolated Black Mountain, which lies to the south of Ajo and has a peak elevation of 3,008 feet (917 and Cardigan Peak at 2,922 feet (891 m), lies in the central mountain mass to the west of Ajo. Camelback Mountain at 2,573 feet (784 m) lies just south of Ajo.

Carol Tuners hike to Bull Pasture

Carol stayed in the main visitor campground until February 2, walked in the Dripping Springs area, spoke with a Ranger, and asked for hiking suggestions. On either the 1st or 2nd, she hiked up to Bull Pasture in the Ajo Mountains and returned there on the 3rd. That second trip was the last time Carol was seen alive, despite a massive search in the area.

The Bull Pasture trail is described as intermediate and gradually climbs up to the rim of a canyon with little shade. The trail continues along the ridge for a while, with probably the best views in the entire Monument. Before the area was a national monument, ranchers brought their cattle up here during the winter, giving it its name. The trail is popular for birding and for wildflowers in spring.

Once hikers reach Bull Pasture, they can either continue to Mt. Ajo (a long, strenuous day hike) or return via the same route or the Estes Canyon Trail.

The next day, February 3, a Park Ranger saw Carol’s car in the Bull Pasture trail parking lot with a note on the windshield. It said something to the effect that if the vehicle was still there on the 4th, a park ranger should be contacted and that she was a solo hiker. Only her boots and canteen were missing from the car, indicating she was likely to only go on a day hike, as she had on the prior days.

Hike to Bull Pasture

Hike to Bull Pasture

She left messages in the trail registers at the Bull Pasture trailhead and up in Pasture itself. One said, "Hi, if you have binocs - look for a white shirt or yellow windbreaker across the way and say hello”. Another odd entry was, "I brought the beer, where were you?" (paraphrased from third-party accounts).

The search was the largest, and probably still is, in the Monument’s history, with 134 people involved over 3,600 hours. As well as the Monument Rangers, several state and tribal agencies and volunteers assisted over two weeks in trying to find Carol. Aircraft and specialist rock climbers were used to check the more difficult terrain in the southern part of the Ajo Mountains. But they found nothing.

8-10 days after Carol vanished, a Park Ranger caught an odour that he recognized from past experiences, and he believed was a dead body. On Monday, February 15th, Supervisory range Hal Koss and others in his team confirmed this distinct human corpse odour, which was very strong. The search was intensified in this area but without success. The following day, Ranger Koss, after flying the area in a border patrol plane, led an 8-man search team back over the area. They, too, observed the odour in the same location, but this time more occasionally and not as distinct. Others in the group described this strange area as “Very weird and Scary”, according to a report from Pima County that author David Paulides, Missing 411, read on his Canam Missing YouTube Channel.

According to Rod Broyles, Chief Ranger for Organ Pipe, “What may have happened is she wandered away from the basin of Bull Pasture and somehow injured herself - perhaps she slipped and fell off a cliff. February 3 was a cold, windy day, and to get out of the bad weather, she crawled into one of the hundreds of tiny caves that lined the cliffs. A dense brush grew right up against the cave entrance. And there she died. The brush has hidden the grave from our searchers, and so we haven’t found her…”

It's nearly 50 years since Carol Turner vanished, and no sign of her has been found. Although her mother felt that she may have been abducted during her visit, there was never any evidence to support this.

Questions on the Carol Turner disappearance

  • What she snatched as her family thought, and if so, by whom or what?

  • What caused the odours of human decay in the Bull Pasture area, and why did searchers describe the area as “Very weird and Scary”?

  • Given the indications of a dead body, why couldn’t cadaver dogs find Carol?

As Chief Ranger Broyle stated in 1971, maybe her remains are to be found in a cave somewhere in the area. A massive search after her disappearance turned up nothing; no new clues have turned up five decades later.

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