Joshua Maddux was a typical 18-year-old teen. He had a flair for writing and music and was described as a free spirit. The teen lived with his father and two sisters in Woodland Park, Colorado, a place he loved for its incredible nature he was very much fascinated with.
And then, on May 8, 2008, Joshua took a walk through the nearby Pike National Forest, but never returned.
His disappearance shocked everyone he knew, especially his family, who experienced a tragic loss when Joshua’s brother died of suicide two years prior.
The search for Joshua was frantic and extensive. His father, Mike Maddux, and all of his friends, looked everywhere, but Joshua was nowhere to be found. Five days later, they filed a missing person report.
The search then continued with the help of authorities and the woods were combed over and over again, but to no avail. Days turned into months and then years, and there was still no sign of Joshua.
The family refused to give up hope. His sister Kate pictured him living a solitude life, traveling with a band or writing novels under a pen name. In their minds, he would come home eventually with stories to tell and maybe a family of his own.
Dad Mike spoke of Joshua and the heartbreak he experienced when his brother Zachary died by suicide before graduating high school. The tragedy stuck with Joshua, but his friends claimed he seemed happy in the days that preceded his disappearance.
And then, in August 2015, Joshua was discovered. But he wasn’t alive and living the life his sister hoped he was living.
Instead, construction workers who were demolishing an old cabin on Meadowlark Lane, just two blocks from Joshua’s home, discovered a body stuck in one of the chimneys.
The body was there for a very long period of time because it was already mummified. Dental records confirmed the worst: it was Joshua Maddux.
“I about had a heart attack,” Mike Maddux said.
According to authorities, “When his body was found, he wore only a thin thermal shirt. His other clothes, pants, shoes, and socks were neatly folded inside the cabin.”
Stranger still, a heavy wooden breakfast bar had been dragged inside and positioned to block the chimney.
The autopsy revealed there were no signs of trauma, or broken bones. There were no knife marks, no bullets, and no drugs found.
Teller County Coroner Al Born ruled the death an accident initially, believing Josh had climbed into the chimney, become lodged, and died from hypothermia during freezing overnight temperatures. But the cabin’s owner, Chuck Murphy, totally rejected the idea.
“The place was damp,” Murphy said. “It smelled like hell. There was raccoon poop all over the place.” He added that twenty years earlier, he had installed a thick wire barrier at the top of the chimney to keep animals out. “There’s no way that guy crawled inside that chimney with that steel webbing,” Murphy insisted. “He didn’t come down the chimney.”
Born then reopened the case. The position of Joshua’s body suggested he had come in headfirst—something Murphy thought would have taken two people.
He changed his finding to accident, homicide, or undetermined, while continuing to assert that Josh came down the chimney.
“This one really taxed our brains,” Born admitted. “We don’t know why he took his clothes off, took his shoes and socks off, and why he went outside, climbed on the roof and went down the chimney. It was not linear thinking.”
Police received tips claiming that someone had bragged about putting Joshua “in a hole.” One suspect, who had a violent history, was seen with Joshua shortly before his disappearance and was later arrested for an unrelated fatal stabbing. Investigators, however, were unable to verify any of the claims. Born also doubted that a single person could have placed the teen in the chimney alone.
Over the years, Murphy occasionally checked on the cabin and noticed a foul odor, which he assumed came from dead rodents. He never thought to inspect the chimney, especially since it had been blocked by furniture. And given the cabin’s remote location, it’s unlikely anyone would have heard Joshua’s cries for help.
“It’s a real conundrum. A tragic, terrible story,” Murphy reflected. “We’ll never really know what happened to him. It’s a horror story in my mind to imagine what my brother must have gone through.”
“All I know is he did not go down that chimney. I think it will remain a mystery. One of those sad stories.”
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