The Coed Killer: Edmund Kemper

Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer and necrophile who murdered ten people, including his paternal grandparents and mother. He is noted for his large size, at 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m), and for his high IQ, at 145. Kemper was nicknamed the "Co-ed Killer" as most of his victims were students at co-educational institutions.

Born in California, Kemper had a disturbed childhood. He moved to Montana with his abusive mother at a young age before returning to California, where he murdered his paternal grandparents when he was 15. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by court psychiatrists and sentenced to the Atascadero State Hospital as a criminally insane juvenile.

Released at the age of 21 after convincing psychiatrists he was rehabilitated, Kemper was regarded as non-threatening by his victims. He targeted young female hitchhiker during his killing spree, luring them into his vehicle and driving them to secluded areas where he would murder them before taking their corpses back to his home to be decapitated, dismembered, and violated. Kemper then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to the authorities.

Found sane and guilty at his trial in 1973, Kemper requested the death penalty for his crimes. Capital punishment was suspended in California at the time, and he instead received eight concurrent life sentences. Since then, he has been incarcerated in the California Medical Facility. Kemper has waived his right to a parole hearing several times and has said he is happy in prison. 

Early life

Edmund Emil Kemper III was born in Burbank, California, on December 18, 1948.  He was the middle child and only son born to Clarnell Elizabeth Kemper (née Stage, 1921–1973) and Edmund Emil Kemper II (1919–1985).  Edmund II was a World War II veteran who, after the war, tested nuclear weapons in the Pacific Proving Grounds before returning to California, where he worked as an electrician.  Clarnell often complained about Edmund II's "menial" electrician job, and he later said "suicide missions in wartime and the atomic bomb testings were nothing compared to living with her" and that Clarnell affected him "more than three hundred and ninety-six days and nights of fighting on the front did."

Weighing 13 pounds (5.9 kg) as a newborn, Kemper was already a head taller than his peers by the age of four.  He was highly intelligent, but exhibited behavior such as cruelty to animals: at the age of 10, he buried a pet cat alive; once it died, he dug it up, decapitated it and mounted its head on a spike.  Kemper later stated that he derived pleasure from successfully lying to his family about killing the cat.  At the age of 13, he killed another family cat when he perceived it to be favoring his younger sister, Allyn Lee Kemper (born 1951), over him, and kept pieces of it in his closet until his mother found them.

Kemper had a dark fantasy life: he performed rituals with his younger sister's dolls that culminated in him removing their heads and hands, and, on one occasion, when his elder sister, Susan Hughey Kemper (1943–2014), teased him and asked why he did not try to kiss his teacher, he replied: "If I kiss her, I'd have to kill her first."  He also recalled that as a young boy he would sneak out of his house and, armed with his father's bayonet, go to his second-grade teacher's house to watch her through the windows.  He stated in later interviews that some of his favorite games to play as a child were "Gas Chamber" and "Electric Chair", in which he asked his younger sister to tie him up and flip an imaginary switch, and then he would tumble over and writhe on the floor, pretending to be dying of gas inhalation or electric shock.  He also had near-death experiences as a child, once when his elder sister tried to push him in front of a train, and another when she successfully pushed him into the deep end of a swimming pool, where he almost drowned.

Kemper had a close relationship with his father and was devastated when his parents separated in 1957, causing him to be raised by Clarnell in Helena, Montana. He had a severely dysfunctional relationship with his mother, a neurotic, domineering alcoholic who would frequently belittle, humiliate and abuse him.  Clarnell often made her son sleep in a locked basement because she feared that he would harm his sisters,  regularly mocked him for his large size—he stood 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) by the age of 15—and derided him as "a real weirdo."  She also refused to cuddle him for fear that she would "turn him gay,"  and told the young Kemper that he reminded her of his father and that no woman would ever love him.  Kemper later described her as a "sick angry woman," and it has been postulated that she suffered from borderline personality disorder.

At the age of 15, Kemper ran away from home in an attempt to reconcile with his father in Van Nuys, California.  Once there, he learned that his father had remarried and had a stepson. Kemper stayed with his father for a short while until the elder Kemper sent him to live with his paternal grandparents, who lived on a ranch in the mountains of North Fork.  Kemper hated living in North Fork; he described his grandfather as "senile," and said that his grandmother "was constantly emasculating me and my grandfather." 

First murders

On August 27, 1964, when Kemper was 15, Kemper's grandmother, Maude Matilda Hughey Kemper (b. 1897), was sitting at the kitchen table when she and Kemper had an argument. Enraged by the argument, Kemper stormed off and grabbed a rifle that his grandfather had given him for hunting. He then returned to the kitchen and fatally shot his grandmother in the head before firing twice more into her back.  Some accounts mention that she also suffered multiple post-mortem stab wounds with a kitchen knife.  When Kemper's grandfather, Edmund Emil Kemper (b. 1892), came home from grocery shopping, Kemper went outside and fatally shot him in the driveway.  He was unsure of what to do next and so phoned his mother, who urged him to contact the local police. Kemper then called the police and waited for them to take him into custody.

When questioned by authorities, Kemper said that he "just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma," and that he killed his grandfather so that he would not have to find out that his wife was dead.  Psychiatrist Donald Lunde, who interviewed Kemper at length during adulthood, wrote that, with these murders, "In his way, he had avenged the rejection of both his father and his mother."  Kemper's crimes were deemed incomprehensible for a 15-year-old to commit, and court psychiatrists diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic before sending him to the criminally insane unit of the Atascadero State Hospital.

Imprisonment

At Atascadero, California Youth Facility psychiatrists and social workers strongly disagreed with the court psychiatrists' diagnoses. Their reports stated that Kemper showed "no flight of ideas, no interference with thought, no expression of delusions or hallucinations, and no evidence of bizarre thinking," and recorded that he had an IQ of 136.  He was re-diagnosed and stated as having a "personality obsessive trait, passive-aggressive behavior”. Later on in his time at Atascadero, Kemper was given another IQ test, which gave the higher result of 145.

Kemper endeared himself to his psychiatrists by being a model prisoner, and was trained to administer psychiatric tests to other inmates.  One of his psychiatrists later stated: "He was a very good worker and this is not typical of a sociopath. He really took pride in his work."  Kemper also became a member of the Jaycees while in Atascadero and stated that he developed "some new tests and some new scales on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory," specifically an "Overt Hostility Scale," during his work with Atascadero psychiatrists.  After his second arrest, Kemper stated that being able to understand how these tests functioned allowed him to manipulate his psychiatrists, and admitted that he learned a lot from the sex offenders to whom he administered tests; for example, they told him it was best to kill a woman after raping her to avoid leaving witnesses. 

Release and time between murders

On December 18, 1969, his 21st birthday, Kemper was released on parole from Atascadero. Against the recommendations of psychiatrists at the hospital,  he was released into the care of Clarnell—who had remarried and taken the surname Strandberg, then divorced again—at 609 A Ord Street, Aptos, California, a short drive from where she worked as an administrative assistant at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Kemper later demonstrated further to his psychiatrists that he was rehabilitated, and on November 29, 1972, his juvenile records were permanently expunged.  The last report from his probation psychiatrists read:

If I were to see this patient without having any history available or getting any history from him, I would think that we're dealing with a very well-adjusted young man who had initiative, intelligence and who was free of any psychiatric illnesses ... It is my opinion that he has made a very excellent response to the years of treatment and rehabilitation and I would see no psychiatric reason to consider him to be of any danger to himself or to any member of society ... [and] since it may allow him more freedom as an adult to develop his potential, I would consider it reasonable to have a permanent expunction of his juvenile records.

While staying with his mother, Kemper attended community college in accordance with his parole requirements and had hoped he would become a police officer, but was rejected because of his size—at the time of his release from Atascadero, Kemper stood 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m) tall—which led to his nickname, "Big Ed".  Kemper maintained relationships with Santa Cruz police officers despite his rejection to join the force and became a self-described "friendly nuisance" at a bar called the Jury Room, which was a popular hangout for local law enforcement officers.  He worked a series of menial jobs before securing employment with the State of California Highway Department (now known as the California Department of Transportation).  During this time, his relationship with Clarnell remained toxic and hostile, with mother and son having frequent arguments which their neighbors often overheard.  Kemper later described the arguments he had with his mother around this time, stating:

My mother and I started right in on horrendous battles, just horrible battles, violent and vicious. I've never been in such a vicious verbal battle with anyone. It would go to fists with a man, but this was my mother and I couldn't stand the thought of my mother and I doing these things. She insisted on it, and just over stupid things. I remember one roof-raiser was over whether I should have my teeth cleaned.

When he had saved enough money, Kemper moved out to live with a friend in Alameda. Here he still complained of being unable to get away from his mother, as she regularly phoned him and paid him surprise visits.  He often had financial difficulties, which resulted in him frequently returning to his mother's apartment in Aptos.

The same year he began working for the Highway Department, Kemper began dating a 16-year-old Turlock High School student to whom he would later become engaged.  Also during this year, he was hit by a car while riding a motorcycle that he had recently purchased. His arm was badly injured, and he received a $15,000 settlement in the civil suit he filed against the car's driver. While driving around in the 1969 Ford Galaxie he bought with his settlement money, he noticed a large number of young women hitchhiking, and began storing plastic bags, knives, blankets, and handcuffs in his car. He then began picking up girls and peacefully letting them go—according to Kemper, he picked up around 150 such hitchhikers—before he felt homicidal sexual urges, which he called his "little zapples," and began acting on them. 

Later murders

Between May 1972 and April 1973, Kemper embarked on a murder spree that started with two college students and ended with the murders of his mother and her best friend. He would pick up female students who were hitchhiking and take them to isolated areas where he would shoot, stab, smother or strangle them. He would then take their lifeless bodies back to his home where he would decapitate them, perform irrumatio on their severed heads, have sexual intercourse with their corpses and then dismember them.  During this 11-month spree, he killed five college students, one high school student, his mother and his mother's best friend. Kemper has stated in interviews that he would often go hunting for victims after his mother's outbursts towards him, and that she would not introduce him to women attending the university where she worked. He recalled: "She would say, 'You're just like your father. You don't deserve to get to know them'."  Psychiatrists, and Kemper himself, have espoused the belief that the young women were surrogates for his ultimate target, his mother, and that the humiliating acts he committed on his mother's corpse support this hypothesis. 

Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa

On May 7, 1972, Kemper was driving in Berkeley when he picked up two 18-year-old hitchhiking Fresno State students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Mary Luchessa, on the pretext of taking them to Stanford University.  After driving for an hour, he managed to reach a secluded wooded area near Alameda, which he was familiar with from his work at the Highway Department, without alerting his passengers that he had changed directions from where they wanted to go.  Here he intended to rape them, but having learned from serial rapists in Atascadero to not leave witnesses, he instead handcuffed Pesce and locked Luchessa in the trunk, then stabbed and strangled Pesce to death before killing Luchessa in a similar manner. Kemper later confessed that while handcuffing Pesce he "brushed the back of [his] hand against one of her breasts and it embarrassed [him]" before adding that "[he] even said 'whoops, I'm sorry' or something like that" after grazing her breast, despite murdering her minutes later.

Kemper put both of the women's bodies in the trunk of his Ford Galaxie and returned to his apartment. He was stopped on the way by a police officer for having a broken taillight but the officer did not detect the corpses in the car.  Kemper's roommate was not at home, so he took the bodies into his apartment, where he took photographs of, and had sexual intercourse with, the naked corpses before dismembering them. He then put the body parts into plastic bags, which he later abandoned near Loma Prieta Mountain.  Before disposing of Pesce's and Luchessa's severed heads in a ravine, Kemper engaged in irrumatio with both of them.  In August, Pesce's skull was found up on Loma Prieta Mountain. An extensive search failed to turn up the rest of Pesce's remains or a trace of Luchessa.

Aiko Koo

On the evening of September 14, 1972, Kemper picked up 15-year-old dance student of Korean and Latvian heritage named Aiko Koo, who had decided to hitchhike to a dance class after missing her bus.  He again drove to a remote area, and pulled a gun on Koo before accidentally locking himself out of his car. However, Koo let him back inside (Kemper had previously gained the 15-year-old's trust while holding her at gunpoint). Back inside the car, he proceeded to choke her unconscious, rape her, and kill her.  He subsequently packed her body into the trunk of his car, had a few drinks at a nearby bar, then exited the bar and opened his trunk, "admiring [his] catch like a fisherman," and returned to his apartment. Back at his apartment, he had sexual intercourse with the corpse before dismembering and disposing of the remains in a similar manner as his previous two victims.  Koo's mother called the police to report the disappearance of her daughter and put up hundreds of flyers asking for information, but did not receive any responses regarding her daughter's location or status. 

Cindy Schall

On January 7, 1973, Kemper, who had moved back in with his mother, was driving around the Cabrillo College campus when he picked up 18-year-old student Cynthia Ann "Cindy" Schall. He drove to a sequestered wooded area and fatally shot her with a .22 caliber pistol. He then placed her body in the trunk of his car and drove to his mother's house, where he kept her body hidden in a closet in his room overnight. When his mother left for work the next morning, he had sexual intercourse with, and removed the bullet from, Schall's corpse before dismembering and decapitating her in his mother's bathtub.

Kemper kept Schall's severed head for several days, regularly engaging in irrumatio with it, before burying it in his mother's garden facing upward toward her bedroom – later remarking that his mother "always wanted people to look up to her."  He discarded the rest of her remains by throwing them off a cliff.  Over the course of the following few weeks, all but Schall's head and right hand were discovered and "pieced together like a macabre jigsaw puzzle." Police and a pathologist determined that she had been hacked to death, and then cut into pieces with a power saw.

Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu

On February 5, 1973, after a heated argument with his mother, Kemper left his house in search of possible victims.  With heightened suspicion of a serial killer preying on hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area, students were advised to get only into cars with University stickers on them. Kemper had such a sticker as his mother worked at University of California, Santa Cruz.  He encountered 23-year-old Rosalind Heather Thorpe and 20-year-old Alice Helen "Allison" Liu on the UCSC campus. According to Kemper, Thorpe entered his car first, which reassured Liu to also enter.  He then fatally shot Thorpe and Liu with his .22 caliber pistol and wrapped their bodies in blankets.

Kemper again brought his victims back to his mother's house; this time he beheaded them in his car and carried the headless corpses into his mother's house to have sexual intercourse with them.  He then dismembered the bodies, removed the bullets to prevent identification and, the next morning, discarded their remains.  Some remains were found at Eden Canyon a week later, and more were found near Highway 1 in March.  When questioned in an interview as to why he removed his victims' heads before performing sexual acts on the bodies, he explained: "The head trip fantasies were a bit like a trophy. You know, the head is where everything is at, the brain, eyes, mouth. That's the person. I remember being told as a kid, you cut off the head and the body dies. The body is nothing after the head is cut off ... well, that's not quite true, there's a lot left in the girl's body without the head." 

Clarnell Strandberg and Sally Hallett

On April 20, 1973, after coming home from a party, 52-year-old Clarnell Elizabeth Strandberg awakened her son with her arrival. While sitting in her bed reading a book, she noticed Kemper enter her room and said to him, "I suppose you're going to want to sit up all night and talk now." Kemper replied "No, good night!"  He then waited for her to fall asleep and returned to bludgeon her with a claw hammer then slit her throat with a knife. He subsequently decapitated her and engaged in irrumatio with her severed head before using it as a dart board; Kemper stated that he "put [her head] on a shelf and screamed at it for an hour ... threw darts at it," and, ultimately, "smashed her face in."  He also cut out her tongue and larynx and put them in the garbage disposal. However, the garbage disposal could not break down the tough vocal cords and ejected the tissue back into the sink. "That seemed appropriate," Kemper later said: "as much as she'd bitched and screamed and yelled at me over so many years."

Kemper then hid his mother's corpse in a closet and went out to drink.  Upon his return, he invited his mother's best friend, 59-year-old Sara Taylor "Sally" Hallett, over to the house for dinner and a movie.  When Hallett arrived, Kemper strangled her to death, decapitated her and spent the night with her dead body.  He subsequently put her corpse in a closet, obscured any outward signs of a disturbance and left a note to the police. It read:

Appx. 5:15 A.M. Saturday. No need for her to suffer any more at the hands of this horrible "murderous Butcher". It was quick—asleep—the way I wanted it. Not sloppy and incomplete, gents. Just a "lack of time". I got things to do!!!

Kemper left the scene, driving nonstop to Pueblo, Colorado.  After not hearing any news on the radio about the murders of his mother and Hallett when he arrived in Pueblo, he found a phone booth and called the police. He confessed to the murders of his mother and Hallett, but the police did not take his call seriously and told him to call back at a later time.  Several hours later, Kemper called again asking to speak to an officer he personally knew. Kemper then confessed to that officer of killing his mother and Hallett, and waited for the police to arrive and take him into custody, where he also confessed to the murders of the six students.  When asked why he turned himself in, Kemper said: "The original purpose was gone ... It wasn't serving any physical or real or emotional purpose. It was just a pure waste of time ... Emotionally; I couldn't handle it much longer. Toward the end there, I started feeling the folly of the whole damn thing, and at the point of near exhaustion, near collapse, I just said to hell with it and called it all off." 

Trial

Kemper was indicted on eight counts of first-degree murder on May 7, 1973.  He was assigned the Chief Public Defender of Santa Cruz County, attorney Jim Jackson. Due to Kemper's explicit and detailed confession, his counsel's only option was to plead not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges. Kemper twice tried to commit suicide in custody. His trial went ahead on October 23, 1973.

Three court-appointed psychiatrists found Kemper to be legally sane. One of the psychiatrists, Dr. Joel Fort, investigated his juvenile records and the diagnosis that he was once psychotic. Fort also interviewed Kemper, including under truth serum, and relayed to the court that Kemper had engaged in cannibalism, alleging that he sliced flesh from the legs of his victims, then cooked and consumed these strips of flesh in a casserole.  Nevertheless, Fort determined that Kemper was fully cognizant in each case, and stated that Kemper enjoyed the prospect of the infamy associated with being labeled a murderer.  Kemper later recanted the confession of cannibalism.

California used the M’naghten Standard which held that for a defendant to "establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of mind, and not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."  Kemper appeared to have known that the nature of his acts was wrong, and had shown signs of malice afterthought.  On November 1, Kemper took the stand. He testified that he killed the victims because he wanted them "for myself, like possessions," and attempted to convince the jury that he was insane based on the reasoning that his actions could only have been committed by someone with an aberrant mind. He said two beings inhabited his body and that when the killer personality took over it was "kind of like blacking out."

On November 8, 1973, the six-man, six-woman jury convened for five hours before declaring Kemper sane and guilty on all counts.  He asked for the death penalty, requesting "death by torture."  However, with a moratorium on capital punishment in the California Supreme Court at that time, he instead received seven years to life for each count, with these terms to be served concurrently, and was sentenced to the California Medical Facility.

Imprisonment

In the California Medical Facility, Kemper was incarcerated in the same prison block as other notorious criminals such as Herbert Mullin and Charles Manson. Kemper showed particular disdain for Mullin, who committed his murders at the same time and in the same area as Kemper. He described Mullin as "just a cold-blooded killer ... killing everybody he saw for no good reason."  Kemper manipulated and physically intimidated Mullin, who, at 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m), was more than a foot shorter than him. Kemper stated that "[Mullin] had a habit of singing and bothering people when somebody tried to watch TV, so I threw water on him to shut him up. Then, when he was a good boy, I'd give him peanuts. Herbie liked peanuts. That was effective, because pretty soon he asked permission to sing. That's called behavior modification treatment.

Kemper remains among the general population in prison and is considered a model prisoner. He was in charge of scheduling other inmates' appointments with psychiatrists and was an accomplished craftsman of ceramic cups.  He was also a prolific reader of books on tape for the blind; a 1987 Los Angeles Times article stated that he was the coordinator of the prison's program and had personally spent over 5,000 hours narrating books with several hundred completed recordings to his name.  He was retired from these positions in 2015, after he experienced a stroke and was declared medically disabled. He received his first rules violation report in 2016, for failing to provide a urine sample.

While imprisoned, Kemper has participated in a number of interviews, including a segment in the 1982 documentary The Killing of America, as well as an appearance in the 1984 documentary Murder: No Apparent Motive.  His interviews have contributed to the understanding of the mind of serial killers. FBI profiler John Douglas described Kemper as "among the brightest" prison inmates he ever interviewed and capable of "rare insight for a violent criminal."  Kemper is forthcoming about the nature of his crimes and has stated that he participated in the interviews to save others like himself from killing; at the end of his Murder: No Apparent Motive interview, he said: "There's somebody out there that is watching this and hasn't done that – hasn't killed people, and wants to, and rages inside and struggles with that feeling, or is so sure they have it under control. They need to talk to somebody about it. Trust somebody enough to sit down and talk about something that isn't a crime; thinking that way isn't a crime. Doing it isn't just a crime, it's a horrible thing. It doesn't know when to quit and it can't be stopped easily once it starts."  He also conducted an interview with French writer Stéphane Bourgoin in 1991.

Kemper was first eligible for parole in 1979. He was denied parole that year, as well as at parole hearings in 1980, 1981, and 1982.  He subsequently waived his right to a hearing in 1985.  He was denied parole at his 1988 hearing, where he said: "society is not ready in any shape or form for me. I can't fault them for that."  He was denied parole again in 1991 and in 1994. He then waived his right to a hearing in 1997 and in 2002.  He attended the next hearing, in 2007, where he was again denied parole. Prosecutor Ariadne Symons said: "We don't care how much of a model prisoner he is because of the enormity of his crimes."  Kemper waived his right to a hearing again in 2012.  Kemper was denied parole in 2017 and is next eligible in 2024. 

In Popular Culture

Film and literature

• Kemper served as an inspiration for the character of Buffalo Bill in Thomas Harris’1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs and its 1991 film adaption. Like Kemper, Bill begins his criminal life by fatally shooting his grandparents as a teenager.
• American author Dean Koontz cited Kemper as an inspiration for character Edgler Vess, in his 1996 novel Intensity.
• Patrick Bateman, in the 2000 film American Psycho, mistakenly attributes a quote by Kemper to Ed Gein, saying: "You know what Ed Gein said about women? ... He said 'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right ... [and the other part of me wonders] what her head would look like on a stick'."
• A direct-to-video horror film loosely based on Kemper's murders, titled Kemper:  The Coed Killer was released in 2008.
• French author Marc Dugain published a novel, Avenue des géants (Avenue of the Giants), about Kemper in 2012.
• Kemper is portrayed by actor Cameron Britton in the 2017 Netflix television drama series Mindhunter.

Music

• American sludge/crust punk band Dystopia used samples from Kemper's 1984 interview (from the movie Murder: No Apparent Motive) in their song "Love // Hate", on their Human = Garbage album.
• American aggrotech band Combichrist mention Kemper in their track "God Bless" for their album Everybody Hates You.
• American thrash metal band Macabre wrote a track about Kemper, titled "Edmund Kemper Had a Horrible Temper", for their Sinister Slaughter album.
• American death metal band Devourment featured a clip of a Kemper interview in their track "Abomination Unseen", for their Unleash the Carnivore album.
• Armenian-American alternative metal band System of a Down mentions Kemper in their unreleased track "Fortress".
• Australian punk rock band The Celibate Rifles wrote a track about Kemper, titled "Temper Temper Mr. Kemper", for their Turgid Miasma of Existence album.
• Australian industrial metal band The Berserker wrote a track about Kemper, titled "Forever", for their eponymous album. It has samples taken from The Killing of America.
• Belgian electro-industrial act Suicide Commando also used the same documentary samples on his track "Severed Head", which appears on his album Implements of Hell.
• English industrial metal band Optimum Wound Profile used many samples from Kemper's testimony in their song "Crave", on their Lowest Common Dominator album.
• German synthpop duo Seabound have a track on their eponymous album that examines the psyche of Kemper, titled "Murder".
• Greek grindcore band EdxKemper have dedicated an EP on the life and crimes of Kemper, titled "Cut Her Head And Love Her"
• Japanese doom metal band Church of Misery wrote the track "Killfornia (Ed Kemper)" for their album Master of Brutality.
• American Murder-Folk artist Amigo the Devil wrote the track “Edmund Temper” for his album Everything is Fine, based upon Kemper.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident

The Dyatlov Pass incident (Russian: Гибель тургруппы Дятлова) refers to the deaths of nine skiers/hikers in the northern Ural Mountains, in the former Soviet Union, between the 1st and 2nd February 1959, in unclear circumstances. The experienced trekking group, who were all from the Ural Polytechnical Institute, had established a camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl, in an area now named in honor of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. During the night, something caused them to tear their way out of their tents and flee the campsite, all while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures.

After the group's bodies were discovered, an investigation by Soviet Union authorities determined that six had died from hyperthermia while the other three showed signs of physical trauma. One victim had a fractured skull; two others had major chest fractures. Additionally, the body of another team member was missing her tongue and eyes. The investigation concluded that an "unknown compelling force" had caused the deaths. Numerous theories have been put forward to account for the unexplained deaths, including animal attacks, hypothermia, avalanche, katabatic winds, infrasound-induced panic, military involvement, or some combination of these. 

Background

In 1959, a group was formed for a skiing expedition across the northern Urals in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union. Igor Dyatlov, a twenty-three-year-old radio engineering student at the Ural Polytechnical Institute (Уральский политехнический институт, УПИ; now Ural Federal University was the leader who assembled a group of nine others for the trip, most of whom were fellow students and peers at the university.  Each member of the group, which consisted of eight men and two women, were experienced Grade II-hikers with ski tour experience, and would be receiving Grade III certification upon their return.  At the time, this was the highest certification available in the Soviet Union, and required candidates to traverse 300 kilometres (190 mi).  The goal of the expedition was to reach Otorten (Отортен), a mountain 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of the site of the incident. This route, in February, was estimated as Category III, the most difficult. 

Members of expedition
Name (English)	Russian name (lit.)	Birthdate	Age	Gender	Notes
Igor Alekseyevich Dyatlov	Игорь Алексеевич Дятлов	13 January 1936	23	Male	Hypothermia; leader of group
Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko	Юрий Николаевич Дорошенко	29 January 1938	21	Male	Hypothermia
Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina	Людмила Александровна Дубинина	12 May 1938	20	Female	Severe chest trauma, eyes missing, tongue missing
Yuri (Georgiy) Alexeyevich Krivonischenko	Юрий (Георгий) Алексеевич Кривонищенко	7 February 1935	23	Male	Hypothermia
Alexander Sergeyevich Kolevatov	Александр Сергеевич Колеватов	16 November 1934	24	Male	Hypothermia
Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova	Зинаида Алексеевна Колмогорова	12 January 1937	22	Female	Hypothermia
Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin	Рустем Владимирович Слободин	11 January 1936	23	Male	Hypothermia
Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles	Николай Владимирович Тибо-Бриньоль	5 July 1935	23	Male	Fatal skull injury
Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotaryov	Семён (Александр) Алексеевич Золотарёв	2 February 1921	38	Male	Severe chest trauma, eyes missing
Yuri Yefimovich Yudin	Юрий Ефимович Юдин	19 July 1937	21	Male	Left expedition on 28 January due to illness; died 27 April 2013 at the age of 75

Expedition

The group arrived by train at Ivdel (Ивдель), a town at the centre of the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast in the early morning hours of 25 January 1959.  They then took a truck to Vizhai (Вижай) – a lorry village that is the last inhabited settlement to the north.  While spending the night in Vizhai, the skiers purchased and ate loaves of bread to keep their energy levels up for the following day's hike.

On 27 January, they began their trek toward Otorten from Vizhai. On 28 January, one of the members, Yuri Yudin, who suffered from several health ailments (including rheumatism and a congenital heart defect), turned back due to knee and joint pain that made him unable to continue the hike.  The remaining group of nine people continued the trek.

Diaries and cameras found around their last campsite made it possible to track the group's route up to the day preceding the incident.  On 31 January, the group arrived at the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for climbing. In a wooded valley they cached surplus food and equipment that would be used for the trip back. The following day (1 February), the hikers started to move through the pass. It seems they planned to get over the pass and make camp for the next night on the opposite side, but because of worsening weather conditions — snowstorms and decreasing visibility — they lost their direction and deviated west, up towards the top of Kholat Syakhl. When they realised their mistake, the group decided to stop and set up camp there on the slope of the mountain, rather than move 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) downhill to a forested area which would have offered some shelter from the elements.  Yudin postulated that "Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the altitude they had gained, or he decided to practice camping on the mountain slope." 

Search and discovery

Before leaving, Dyatlov had agreed he would send a telegram to their sports club as soon as the group returned to Vizhai. It was expected that this would happen no later than 12 February, but Dyatlov had told Yudin, before his departure from the group, that he expected to be longer. When the 12th passed and no messages had been received, there was no immediate reaction, as delays of a few days were common with such expeditions. On 20 February the relatives of the travelers demanded a rescue operation and the head of the institute sent the first rescue groups, consisting of volunteer students and teachers.  Later, the army and militsiva forces became involved, with planes and helicopters being ordered to join the rescue operation.

On 26 February, the searchers found the group's abandoned and badly damaged tent on Kholat Syakhl. The campsite baffled the search party. Mikhail Sharavin, the student who found the tent, said "the tent was half torn down and covered with snow. It was empty, and all the group's belongings and shoes had been left behind."  Investigators said the tent had been cut open from inside. Eight or nine sets of footprints, left by people who were wearing only socks or a single shoe or were even barefoot, could be followed, leading down towards the edge of a nearby woods, on the opposite side of the pass, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) to the north-east.  However, after 500 metres (1,600 ft) these tracks were covered with snow. At the forest's edge, under a large Siberian pine (in popular parlance it is called "cedar"), the searchers found the visible remains of a small fire. There were the first two bodies, those of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. The branches on the tree were broken up to five metres high, suggesting that one of the skiers had climbed up to look for something, perhaps the camp. Between the pine and the camp the searchers found three more corpses: Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin, who seemed to have died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the tent.  They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 metres from the tree.

Finding the remaining four travelers took more than two months.  They were finally found on 4 May under four metres of snow in a ravine 75 metres further into the woods from the pine tree. Three of those four were better dressed than the others, and there were signs that those who had died first had their clothes relinquished to the others. Dubinina was wearing Krivonishenko's burned, torn trousers and her left foot and shin were wrapped in a torn jacket. 

Investigation

A legal inquest started immediately after the first five bodies were found. A medical examination found no injuries that might have led to their deaths, and it was eventually concluded that they had all died of hypothermia. Slobodin had a small crack in his skull, but it was not thought to be a fatal wound.

An examination of the four bodies which were found in May shifted the narrative as to what had occurred during the incident. Three of the ski hikers had fatal injuries: Thibeaux-Brignolles had major skull damage, and both Dubinina and Zolotaryov had major chest fractures.  According to Dr. Boris Vozrozhdenny, the force required to cause such damage would have been extremely high, comparable to the force of a car crash. Notably, the bodies had no external wounds associated with the bone fractures, as if they had been subjected to a high level of pressure. However, major external injuries were found on Dubinina, who was missing her tongue, eyes, part of the lips, as well as facial tissue and a fragment of skullbone; she also had extensive skin maceration on the hands. It was claimed that Dubinina was found lying face down in a small stream that ran under the snow and that her external injuries were in line with putrefaction in a wet environment, and were unlikely to be associated with her death.

There was initial speculation that the indigenous Mansi people had attacked and murdered the group for encroaching upon their lands, but investigation indicated that the nature of their deaths did not support this hypothesis; only the hikers' footprints were visible, and they showed no sign of hand-to-hand struggle.

Although the temperature was very low, around −25 to −30 °C (−13 to −22 °F) with a storm blowing, the dead were only partially dressed. Some of them had only one shoe, while others had no shoes or wore only socks.  Some were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes that seemed to have been cut from those who were already dead.

Journalists reporting on the available parts of the inquest files claim that it states:

• Six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries.
• There were no indications of other people nearby on Kholat Syakhl apart from the nine travelers.
• The tent had been ripped open from within.
• The victims had died 6 to 8 hours after their last meal.
• Traces from the camp showed that all group members left the campsite of their own accord, on foot.
• High levels of radiation were found on only one victim's clothing.
• To dispel the theory of an attack by the indigenous Mansi people, Vozrozhdenny stated that the fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being, "because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue had been damaged".
• Released documents contained no information about the condition of the skiers' internal organs.
• There were no survivors of the incident.

At the time the verdict was that the group members had all died because of a compelling natural force.  The inquest officially ceased in May 1959 as a result of the absence of a guilty party. The files were sent to a secret archive.

On 12 April 2018, the remains of Zolotarev were exhumed upon the initiative of journalists of the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravada. Contradictory results were obtained: one of the experts stated that the character of the injuries resembled a person knocked down by a car, and the DNA analysis did not reveal any similarity to the DNA of living relatives. In addition, it turned out that the name Semyon Zolotarev is not on the list of buried at the Ivanovskoye cemetery. Nevertheless, the reconstruction of the face from the exhumed skull agrees with the post-war photographs of Semyon, although journalists express suspicions that another person was hiding under the name of Semyon Zolotarev after the war.

The region was closed to expeditions and hikers for three years after the incident, but is currently accessible.

In February 2019, CNN announced that the Russian authorities were reopening the investigation, although only three possible explanations were being considered: an avalanche, a "snow slab" avalanche, or a hurricane. The possibility of a crime has been completely discounted. 

Related reports

• 12-year-old Yury Kuntsevich, who later became the head of the Yekaterinburg-based Dyatlov Foundation, attended five of the hikers' funerals. He recalled that their skin had a "deep brown tan".
• Another group of hikers (about 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of the incident) reported that they saw strange orange spheres in the sky to the north on the night of the incident. Similar spheres were observed in Ivdel and adjacent areas continually during the period from February to March 1959, by various independent witnesses (including the meteorology service and the military). However, these sightings were not noted in the initial investigation in 1959, and these various independent witnesses only came forward years later.

Aftermath

In 1967, Sverdlovsk writer and journalist Yuri Yarovoi (Russian: Юрий Яровой) published the novel Of the Highest Degree of Complexity, inspired by the incident. Yarovoi had been involved in the search for Dyatlov's group and at the inquest as an official photographer during both the search and the initial stage of the investigation, and so had insight into the events. The book was written during the Soviet era when details of the accident were kept secret and Yarovoi avoided revealing anything beyond the official position and well-known facts. The book romanticized the accident and had a much more optimistic end than the real events – only the group leader was found deceased. Yarovoi's colleagues say that he had alternative versions of the novel, but both were declined because of censorship. Since Yarovoi's death in 1980, all his archives, including photos, diaries and manuscripts, have been lost.

Anatoly Gushchin (Russian: Анатолий Гущин) summarized his research in the book The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives (Цена гостайны – девять жизней, Sverdlovsk, 1990). Some researchers criticized the work for its concentration on the speculative theory of a Soviet secret weapon experiment, but its publication led to public discussion, stimulated by interest in the paranormal. Indeed, many of those who had remained silent for thirty years reported new facts about the accident. One of them was the former police officer, Lev Ivanov (Лев Иванов), who led the official inquest in 1959. In 1990, he published an article which included his admission that the investigation team had no rational explanation for the incident. He also stated that, after his team reported that they had seen flying spheres, he then received direct orders from high-ranking regional officials to dismiss this claim.

In 2000, a regional television company produced the documentary film The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass (Тайна перевала Дятлова). With the help of the film crew, a Yekaterinburg writer, Anna Matveyeva (Russian: Анна Матвеева), published a fiction/documentary novella of the same name.  A large part of the book includes broad quotations from the official case, diaries of victims, interviews with searchers and other documentaries collected by the film-makers. The narrative line of the book details the everyday life and thoughts of a modern woman (an alter ego of the author herself) who attempts to resolve the case.

Despite its fictional narrative, Matveyeva's book remains the largest source of documentary materials ever made available to the public regarding the incident. In addition, the pages of the case files and other documentaries (in photocopies and transcripts) are gradually being published on a web forum for enthusiastic researchers.

A Dyatlov Foundation was founded in 1999 at Yekaterinburg, with the help of Ural State Technical University, led by Yuri Kuntsevitch (Юрий Кунцевич). The foundation's stated aim is to continue investigation of the case and to maintain the Dyatlov Museum to preserve the memory of the dead hikers.  On 1 July 2016, a memorial plaque was inaugurated in Solikamsk in Ural's Perm Region, dedicated to Yuri Yudin (the sole survivor of the expedition group) who died in 2013. 

Theories

Avalanche

The theory that an avalanche caused the hikers' deaths, while initially popular, has since been questioned. Reviewing the sensationalist "Yeti" hypothesis, American skeptic author Benjamin Radford suggests as more plausible:

"that the group woke up in a panic (...) and cut their way out the tent either because an avalanche had covered the entrance to their tent or because they were scared that an avalanche was imminent (...) (better to have a potentially repairable slit in a tent than risk being buried alive in it under tons of snow). They were poorly clothed because they had been sleeping, and ran to the safety of the nearby woods where trees would help slow oncoming snow. In the darkness of night they got separated into two or three groups; one group made a fire (hence the burned hands) while the others tried to return to the tent to recover their clothing, since the danger had apparently passed. But it was too cold, and they all froze to death before they could locate their tent in the darkness. At some point some of the clothes may have been recovered or swapped from the dead, but at any rate the group of four whose bodies were most severely damaged were caught in an avalanche and buried under 4 metres (13 ft) of snow (more than enough to account for the 'compelling natural force' the medical examiner described). Dubinina's tongue was likely removed by scavengers and ordinary predation."

Evidence contradicting the avalanche theory includes:

• The location of the incident did not have any obvious signs of an avalanche having taken place. An avalanche would have left certain patterns and debris distributed over a wide area. The bodies found within a month of the event were covered with a very shallow layer of snow and, had there been an avalanche of sufficient strength to sweep away the second party, these bodies would have been swept away as well; this would have caused more serious and different injuries in the process and would have damaged the tree line.
• Over 100 expeditions to the region were held since the incident, and none of them ever reported conditions that might create an avalanche. A study of the area using up-to-date terrain-related physics revealed that the location was entirely unlikely for such an avalanche to have occurred. The "dangerous conditions" found in another nearby area (which had significantly steeper slopes and cornices) were observed in April and May when the snowfalls of winter were melting. During February, when the incident occurred, there were no such conditions.
• An analysis of the terrain, the slope and the incline indicates that even if there could have been a very specific avalanche that circumvents the other criticisms, its trajectory would have bypassed the tent. It had collapsed laterally but not horizontally.
• Dyatlov was an experienced skier and the much older Semyon Zolotaryov was studying for his Masters Certificate in ski instruction and mountain hiking. Neither of these two men would have been likely to camp anywhere in the path of a potential avalanche.
• Footprint patterns leading away from the tent were inconsistent with someone, let alone a group of 9 people, running in panic from either real or imagined danger. In fact, all the footprints leading away from the tent and towards the woods were consistent with individuals who were walking at a normal pace.

Repeated 2015 investigation

A review of the 1959 investigation's evidence completed in 2015–2019 by experienced investigators from the Investigative Committee of Russian Federation (ICRF) on request of the families confirmed the avalanche with a number of important details added. First of all, the ICRF investigators (one of them an experienced alpinist) confirmed that the weather on the night of the tragedy was very harsh, with snow storm and temperature falling below −40 °C, which wasn't really considered by the 1959 investigators who arrived at the scene of the accident a week later, when weather had much improved and any remains of the snow slide settled down and had been covered with fresh snowfall. The harsh weather at the same time played critical role in the events of the tragic night, which has been reconstructed as follows:

• On 1 February the group arrives at the Kholat Syakhl Mountain and erects a large, 9-person tent on an open slope, without any natural barriers, such as forests. On the day and a few preceding days a heavy snowfall continued, with strong wind and frost.
• The group, traversing through the slope and digging in the tent into the snow weakens the snow base. During the night the snow field above the tent starts to slide down, pushing on the tent fabric. The group wakes up and starts evacuation in panic. Some of the attendees were able to put on warm clothes, while some didn't. All escape through a hole in the tent fabric. The whole group goes down the slope and finds a place perceived as safe from the avalanche only 1500 m down, at the forest border.
• Four of the group, only in their underwear and pyjamas, camp at a small fireplace they started at the forest border. Their bodies were found first and confirmed to die from hypothermia.
• Three alpinists, including Dyatlov, attempted to climb back to the tent, possibly to get sleeping bags. They had better clothes than those at the fireplace, but still quite light and their footwear was incomplete. Their bodies were found at various places ranging 300–600 m from the campfire, in poses suggesting they fell down of exhaustion while trying to climb in deep snow in extremely cold weather.
• Remaining four, equipped with warm clothes and footwear, were apparently trying to find or build a better camping place in the forest further down the slope. Their bodies were found only 70 m from the fireplace, under several meters thick layer of snow and with traumas indicating they fell into a snow hole formed above a stream. These bodies were only found after two months.

According to the ICRF investigators, the factors contributing to the tragedy were extremely bad weather and lack of experience of the group leader in such conditions, which led to selection of a dangerous camping place. After the snow slide, another mistake of the group was to split up, rather than building a temporary camping place down in the forest and trying to survive through the night. Negligence of the 1959 investigators contributed to their report creating more questions than answers and inspiring numerous conspiracy theories. 

Katabatic wind

In 2019, a Swedish-Russian expedition was made to the site, and after investigations they proposed that a violent katabatic wind is a likely explanation for the incident.  Katabatic winds are somewhat rare events and can be extremely violent and was implicated in a similar case in Sweden, the accident at Anaris, where 8 hikers perished in 1978 in the aftermath of a katabatic wind. The topography of these locations were noted to be very similar according to the expedition.

A sudden katabatic wind would have made it impossible to remain in the tent, and the most rational course of action would be for the hikers to cover the tent with snow and seek shelter among the treeline. There was also a flashlight left turned on top of the tent, possibly left there intentionally so the hikers could find their way back to the tent once the winds subsided. The expedition proposed that the group of hikers constructed two bivouac shelters, one of which collapsed, leaving four of the hikers buried with the violent injuries observed.

Infrasound

Another hypothesis popularized by Donnie Eichar's 2013 book Dead Mountain is that wind going around Kholatsyakal Mountain created a Karman Vortex street, which can produce infrasound capable of inducing panic attacks in humans.  According to Eichar's theory, the infrasound generated by the wind as it passed over the top of the Holatchahl mountain was responsible for causing physical discomfort and mental distress in the hikers.  Eichar claims that, because of their panic, the hikers were driven to leave the tent by whatever means necessary, and fled down the slope. By the time they were further down the hill, they would have been out of the infrasound's path and would have regained their composure, but in the darkness would be unable to return to their shelter.  The traumatic injuries suffered by three of the victims were the result of their stumbling over the ledge of a ravine in the darkness and landing on the rocks at the bottom. 

Military tests

Speculation exists that the campsite fell within the path of a Soviet parachute mine exercise. This theory alleges that the hikers, woken by loud explosions, fled the tent in a shoeless, shell shocked panic and found themselves unable to return for supply retrieval. After some members froze to death attempting to endure the bombardment, others commandeered their clothing only to be fatally injured by subsequent parachute mine concussions. There are indeed records of parachute mines being tested by the Soviet military in the area around the time the hikers were there. Parachute mines detonate while still in the air rather than upon striking the Earth's surface and produce signature injuries similar to those experienced by the hikers: Heavy internal damage with comparably less external trauma. The theory coincides with reported sightings of glowing, orange orbs floating or falling in the sky within the general vicinity of the hikers, potentially military aircraft or descending parachute mines. This theory (among others) uses scavenging animals to explain Dubinina's injuries.  Some speculate the bodies were unnaturally manipulated due to characteristic livor mortis markings discovered during autopsy, as well as burns to hair and skin. Photographs of the tent allegedly show that it was apparently erected incorrectly, something the experienced hikers were unlikely to have done.

A similar theory alleges the testing of radiological weapons, and is partly based on the discovery of radioactivity on some of the clothing as well as the bodies being described by relatives as having orange skin and grey hair. However, radioactive dispersal would have affected all of the hikers and equipment instead of just some of it, and the skin and hair discoloration can be explained by a natural process of mummification after three months of exposure to the cold and winds. Furthermore, the initial suppression of files regarding the group's disappearance by Soviet authorities is sometimes mentioned as evidence of a cover-up, but the concealment of information regarding domestic incidents was standard procedure in the USSR and therefore far from peculiar. And by the late 1980s, all Dyatlov files had been released in some manner. 

Paradoxical undressing

International Science Times posited that the hikers' deaths were caused by hypothermia, which can induce a behaviour known as paradoxical undressing in which hypothermic subjects remove their clothes in response to perceived feelings of burning warmth.  It is undisputed that six of the nine hikers died of hypothermia. However, others in the group appear to have acquired additional clothing (from those who had already died) which suggests that they were of a sound enough mind to try to add layers. 

Pseudoscientific theories

The 2014 Discovery Channel special Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives explored the theory that the Dyatlov group was killed by a menk or Russian Yeti. The show begins with the premise that the skiers' injuries were such that only a creature with superhuman strength could have caused them.  The episode concluded with there being no solid evidence for its claims; however, in the interview with the two members of a search party who got on to the scene first, they claim that they saw footprints larger than those of a human and that those footprints were never included in an official Soviet government report, and additionally that after months of trying to gain access, a Russian documentary narrator Maria finally got access to a classified Soviet military document regarding the investigation of the missing hikers in which the start date of the investigation is 6 February, but the hikers were reported missing almost 10 days later on 15–16 February, which could indicate a Soviet military cover-up operation. The documentary also claims that the howling sound they've recorded during their cave and forest expedition does not belong to any known animal species. 

Other

Keith McCloskey, who has researched the incident for many years and has appeared in several TV documentaries on the subject, travelled to the Dyatlov Pass in 2015 with Yury Kuntsevich of the Dyatlov Foundation and a group. At the Dyatlov Pass he noted:

• There were wide discrepancies in distances quoted between the two possible locations of the snow shelter where Dubinina, Kolevatov, Zolotarev and Thibault-Brignolles were found. One location was approximately 80 to 100 metres from the pine tree where the bodies of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko were found and the other suggested location was so close to the tree that anyone in the snow shelter could have spoken to those at the tree without raising their voices to be heard. This second location also has a rock in the stream where Dubinina's body was found and is the more likely location of the two. However, the second suggested location of the two has a topography that is closer to the photos taken at the time of the search in 1959.
• The location of the tent near the ridge was found to be too close to the spur of the ridge for any significant build-up of snow to cause an avalanche. Furthermore, the prevailing wind blowing over the ridge had the effect of blowing snow away from the edge of the ridge on the side where the tent was. This further reduced any build-up of snow to cause an avalanche. This aspect of the lack of snow on the top and near the top of the ridge was pointed out by Sergey Sogrin in 2010

McCloskey also noted:

• Lev Ivanov's boss, Evgeny Okishev (Deputy Head of the Investigative Department of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Prosecution Office), was still alive in 2015 and had given an interview to former Kemerovo prosecutor Leonid Proshkin in which Okishev stated that he was arranging another trip to the Pass to fully investigate the strange deaths of the last four bodies when Deputy Prosecutor General Urakov arrived from Moscow and ordered the case shut down.
• Evgeny Okishev also stated in his interview with Leonid Proshkin that Klinov, head of the Sverdlovsk Prosecutor's Office, was present at the first post mortems in the morgue and spent three days there, something Okishev regarded as highly unusual and the only time, in his experience, it had happened.

Donnie Eichar, who investigated and made a documentary about the incident, evaluated several other theories that are deemed unlikely or have been discredited:

• They were attacked by Mansi or other local tribesmen.

The local tribesmen were known to be peaceful and there was no track evidence of anyone approaching the tent.

• They were attacked and chased by animal wildlife.

There were no animal tracks and the group would not have abandoned the relative security of the tent.

• High winds blew one member away, and the others attempted to rescue the person.

A large experienced group would not have behaved like that, and winds strong enough to blow away people with such force would have also blown away the tent.

• An argument, possibly related to a romantic encounter that left some of them only partially clothed, led to a violent dispute.

About this, Eichar states that it is "highly implausible. By all indications, the group was largely harmonious and sexual tension was confined to platonic flirtation and crushes. There were no drugs present and the only alcohol was a small flask of medicinal alcohol, found intact at the scene. The group had even sworn off cigarettes for the expedition." Furthermore, a fight could not have left the massive injuries that one body had suffered.

In popular culture

Popular interest in Russia was revived in the 1990s in the wake of Gushchin's 1990 novel, The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives. In 2000, a regional television company produced the documentary film, with a follow-up novella by Anna Matveyeva. Anna Kiryanova wrote a journal-style novel based on a fictionalized account of the incident in 2005.

In 2015 Russian band Kauan released the album Sorni Nai which attempts to reconstruct the events that led up to the incident.

The incident came to wider attention in popular media outside of Russia in the 2010s.

• Anatoly Gushchin (Анатолий Гущин), The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives (Цена гостайны – девять жизней), 1990.
• The Dyatlov Pass Incident (aka Devil’s Pass), a film directed by Renny Harlin, was released on 28 February 2013 in Russia and 23 August 2013 in the USA. It follows five American students retracing the steps of the victims, but, being a work of fiction, makes several changes in describing the initial events, e.g. inverting names of victims.
• The incident figures prominently in the 2012 novel City of Exiles by Alec Nevala-Lee.
• Russia's Mystery Files: Episode 2 – The Dyatlov Pass Incident, 28 November 2014, National Geographic.
• The 2015 Polish horror video game Kholat is inspired by the Dead Mountain incident, in which the player goes to Dyatlov Pass in order to trace the steps of the lost expedition, and begins to uncover "the true cause" of the hikers' deaths.