Lost Hiker’s Body Found 2 Years After Being Lost, Message to Loved Ones Retrieved

Investigators had discovered the journal of the dead hiker who had gone missing in 2013.

The Maine Warden Service released more than 1,500 pages of documents last Wednesday as part of a public records request, and these documents were related to the search of Geraldine Largay, the hiker from Brentwood, Texas who got lost during a hike on the Appalachian Trail.

According to the report, 66-year-old Largay had written final messages to her loved ones. In a journal entry dated August 6, 2013, 15 days after she went missing, Largay had written:

"When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry. It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me - no matter how many years from now. Please find it in your heart to mail the contents of this bag to one of them."

Largay's body was found more than two years later, in a sleeping bag inside a zipped-up tent, according to CNN.

Largay's writings were personal letters to her family, said a Maine warden who compiled the documents. There were journal entries through August 10, and the last entry was on the 18^th.

Largay, who was a retired air force nurse, disappeared on July 22, 2013 after leaving the trail to look for a bathroom, the report said. She sent a text message to her husband saying that she was lost, but were never delivered. Report said the message was retrieved from her phone after her body was found.

The message read: "in somm trouble. Got off trail to go to br. now lost. can you call AMC to c if a trail maintainer can help me. somewhere north of woods road."

She tried to send another message the next day, but failed to send. It read: "Lost since yesterday. Off trail 3 or 4 miles. Call police for what to do pls. xox."

Largay's husband reported her missing on July 24, 2013, setting off a massive search by the Maine Warden Service.

It was only in October 2015 that her remains were found in a U.S. Navy property used for survival training skills. Largay's tent has collapsed and her body was inside a sleeping bag. Medical examiners said she died of starvation and exposure, according to a report in Chicago Tribune.