00:00:00
[Music] I think Forest wanted to become a legend and I actually think he succeeded. He
00:00:14
was described as a modern-day Indiana Jones. Forest came up with the idea to hide a
00:00:21
bronze chest filled with gold somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I bought this beautiful little treasure
00:00:28
chest and I started filling it up with wonderful things. There's 265 gold coins, hundreds and hundreds of gold
00:00:35
nuggets. He wrote a 24line poem guiding people to the location of the treasure. Yeah, that's exactly it. He created
00:00:44
effectively a treasure map in the form of that poem. I'm going to read the poem.
00:00:51
So, here it goes. As I have gone alone in there and with my treasures bold, I can keep my secret wear and hint of
00:01:00
riches new and old. There'll be no paddle up your creek, just heavy loads and water high.
00:01:07
So hear me all and listen good. Your effort will be worth the cold. If you've been brave and in the wood, I give you
00:01:15
title to the gold. And I read that poem and oh god, it was like a hook. No place for the meek. The bug got in me
00:01:23
and I couldn't let it go. I tried to climb up into that cave there. I couldn't sleep. I thought it was the
00:01:30
coolest thing I'd ever heard. How much was that treasure worth? I I think that 1 million is a pretty good
00:01:36
mark to use. [Music] I made at least 85 trips. I didn't find the treasure yet. We had so much fun. It was crazy.
00:01:51
Since there's a mountain line in the area, we don't want to take any chances. So, we're bringing our gun.
00:01:56
I have spent over 2,000 hours. This is where I ran into my rattlesnake searching for forest fence treasure.
00:02:04
Well, I made it hard deliberately. If it was easy, anyone could do it. For at least five people, the search for
00:02:15
Fen's treasure was the last thing they ever did. Yes. Unfortunately, you know, this
00:02:20
treasure hunt did claim at least five lives. Randy Billu was the first. Paris Wallace
00:02:28
also died in the Rio Grand River. Eric Ashby died in the Arkansas River. There was a gentleman who was hiking in
00:02:40
Yellowstone and ended up falling off of a cliff. Two men who went out with snowmobiles.
00:02:47
I've got him in sight still. One of them froze to death and the other one was hospitalized.
00:02:54
Forest Finn was a bad person. He could have stopped this madness before it became what it became.
00:03:05
It wasn't worth it. How does Forest Fen respond to that? By to some degree digging in his heels.
00:03:13
He didn't like the idea that anyone would tell him to bring his hunt to an end because of a few deaths.
00:03:20
He said that if somebody was murdered because of the hunt, that would probably be too much.
00:03:27
[Music] [Music] [Music] High at top a ridge near Dinosaur National Monument, 53-year-old Mike
00:04:21
Sexon froze to death. This is the last known photo of him taken in March 2020 as he hiked in that remote area. Days
00:04:31
later, Mike's body was airlifted off the mountaintop. Hey, he's coming up. All right, he's about halfway.
00:04:38
Mike became the fifth person to die while searching for Forest F's hidden treasure.
00:04:44
Mike was full of life. Mike was an adventurer and always smiling, always laughing, a big deep chuckle.
00:04:51
Friend Liz Keyi struggles to reconcile Mike's love of adventure with his terrible loss.
00:04:58
I'm glad that he took this adventure. I am very sad that he's gone. And I miss Mike every day. I miss his hugs when I'm
00:05:08
stressed. I miss his support. I miss his voice, his laughter. Beth Van Oz today is forced to cope
00:05:19
without her longtime boyfriend. Mike had been her rock after she suffered a brain
00:05:25
injury. He was more than just my partner. He was in some ways my caretaker. After Mike's
00:05:33
death, Liz felt compelled to send Forest Fen an anguished email. How many people have to die
00:05:40
before your game is done? I had received an email back and and he just gave his condolences to Beth.
00:05:49
Forest Fen was a very complicated person. Dan Barbaresi explores Fen's complexities in his new book, Chasing
00:05:57
the Thrill, Obsession, Death, and Glory in America's Most Extraordinary Treasure
00:06:02
Hunt. He believed in stories that were bigger than just your run-of-the-mill standard
00:06:08
tale. And he dreamed big. He believed in big things. And Fen had lived a big life, beginning
00:06:15
with his days in the Air Force when he was shot down twice in Vietnam and later as the owner of a well-known
00:06:22
southwestern art gallery. How did a retired fighter pilot reinvent himself in Santa Fe, New Mexico with not just an
00:06:32
art gallery, but one of the most famous art galleries in America? I think he would tell you it's about the show you
00:06:39
can put on. And there's no question that Fen put on a good show. His gallery attracted
00:06:46
celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onasses, Steve Martin, and Ralph Lauren. [Music]
00:06:53
But there were recurring whispers that Fen may have built his impressive collection by plundering ancient Native
00:07:00
American PBLO. There were certainly some questions about how he came in possession of some
00:07:05
of those artifacts over time. In 2009, long after Fen had sold his gallery, his home was raided by federal agents from
00:07:13
the Bureau of Land Management. And it ultimately turned out that Fen was not charged with anything in that
00:07:18
case. The next year, Fen self-published his memoir, The Thrill of the Chase. To get families into the great outdoors,
00:07:29
Fen put a little incentive inside his memoir, that distinctive 24line poem. He claimed it contained clues that would
00:07:38
lead one clever person to the 10 by 10 in chest of gold he'd hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.
00:07:45
If you can follow the clues in the poem to the treasure chest, you're going to be amazed at what you find.
00:07:52
Then launched a modern-day treasure hunt, but it was slowgoing at first. It felt like a small little treasure hunt
00:08:01
for a few people who knew about it. When did that change and why? It got noticed by the larger media.
00:08:09
There were a few big pieces. One in Hemispheres magazine, one in Newsweek. I think the name of that reporter was
00:08:16
the same as my name. Whatever it was was a very hard name to pronounce, but I'm pretty sure it was
00:08:21
Tony. That much I've got. It's pronounced DOP, by the way. It really started to raise the profile
00:08:26
of it in a significant way. It wasn't long before tens of thousands of people were on the hunt. In 2015,
00:08:35
months before any of the searchers died, Ben spoke to CBS News about the likelihood of anyone finding his
00:08:42
treasure. It isn't impossible, but you're not going to stumble over it. You have to
00:08:47
deliberately go to it. Fen said the spot he chose was so beautiful he could imagine it as his
00:08:55
final resting place. An original version of the poem actually talked about his bones being there next to the treasure
00:09:01
chest itself. Fen dropped that idea. The searchers had their own reasons for going on the hunt
00:09:07
and it became clear that many were seeking more than a box of gold. I think a lot of people really wanted to
00:09:13
be part of something bigger than themselves. Maybe there was something missing in their lives and for others it
00:09:18
was that they felt that people hadn't believed in them to the extent that they should have.
00:09:24
Searchers shared their passion and began to compare so-called solves, their interpretation of the clues in the poem.
00:09:32
It was all online until some got the idea to meet in real life. And so of that was born Fenbury. Exactly what it
00:09:40
sounds like. It's a Forest Fen Jamberee. Each summer, Fen's fans flocked to Santa
00:09:46
Fe where Forest Fen was her star attraction. I think I described it as as meeting a
00:09:51
beetle. You know, it was that kind of thing. Everybody just lined up literally to get their their brief moment with
00:09:56
Forest Fen. People use the word eccentric, but I don't think that's the right word for
00:10:00
him. He was just his own man. Sasha Dent was living in Albuquerque when she took up the chase.
00:10:06
I probably searched for Forest Fence treasure about 300 times. She became an insider.
00:10:12
Forest was such a a major part of my life. And Sasha saw firsthand the good that
00:10:18
came from Fen's game. There was account after account of families who were brought together because of Forest Fence
00:10:26
treasure hunt. There were relationships built on the treasure hunt and marriages
00:10:32
and that includes her own marriage. Brea out. [Music] Another of Fen's favorites was Katya
00:10:43
Luc, a singer songwriter who knew Fan in the9s before he wrote his memoir. When she later came across Fven's book,
00:10:52
well, gold fever struck that very night. I couldn't sleep all night long. I'm either Google Earth, Googling, reading
00:11:00
the book again, underlining, highlighting. She estimates she spent $75,000 over 7 years of searching. It was a
00:11:11
great time, she says, even during some dangerous moments. I had a very close encounter while I was searching for the
00:11:18
treasure with a cougar and I just froze. But then I lifted up my hoodie really tall and made myself
00:11:28
bigger. I went marching really strong and did like a pseudo chant really loud. Hey.
00:11:42
[Music] Katya came away unscathed, but others were not so lucky. This is not some disnified hunt where at
00:11:52
the end of it everything turns out okay. The reality is if you don't take this thing seriously, it will get you.
00:12:10
Look just to the right of that tree off in the distance. You see it? That's where we're going.
00:12:15
For 5 years, no one could find the location of Ben's treasure. But the searchers had become a tight community.
00:12:22
If it's snow covered, it's pointless. I think we were like a support group for each
00:12:26
other. You're among people who get that it's not just about the money. He says it cannot be stumbled upon. It's
00:12:32
about being the one who cracked the code. I have looked and I have looked and I have looked.
00:12:37
And the other people, they get it. I know at least probably 30 places where it's not.
00:12:42
You would talk about your solve, as they called it, but you never gave the exact
00:12:47
location. I told you we're not going to be in Yellowstone. The distances didn't work
00:12:52
out really well for me. Toby Ununice hosted a popular YouTube show about the hunt.
00:12:58
Everybody believed they were going to find their treasure. There was no acceptance of the idea that someone else
00:13:05
would find the treasure. [Music] And divorced grandfather Randy Bill was convinced he had as good a chance as
00:13:15
anyone. I met Randy a couple times at some of the Fen gatherings. Randy was always my protector. Randy
00:13:24
grew up on Long Island, New York, and his sister Kathy Leebold remembers he loves sports and animals. Randy learned
00:13:32
of Fen's treasure in 2013 and started searching the next year. I think he was excited about the
00:13:39
adventure of the hunt and um he thought if he found the treasure that he would use the money to help his family.
00:13:46
And if you knew Randy, you knew Leo, his long-haired Jack Russell. Leo was his best buddy and he took him everywhere.
00:13:55
Randy and Leo moved to Colorado to be closer to the search area. And at the beginning, Kathy says he was good about
00:14:02
letting his family know when he was going out on the trail, but later that changed.
00:14:09
I think he thought he was getting really, really close to it and um he just wanted to, you know, excite us all
00:14:16
with the news that he had found it. On January 5th, 2016, Randy and Leo headed out to the Rio Grand northwest of Santa
00:14:25
Fe with a small raft. Temperatures hovered around freezing. He was gone for 10 days before he was
00:14:34
reported missing. I had a sinking feeling that something was really very wrong. Flight nurse Aaron Johnson was part of a
00:14:42
medical helicopter crew sent out to look for Randy. On the initial search, they found
00:14:48
nothing and headed back up river. And that's actually when we found his raft. That's a raft. It's uh blue.
00:14:58
They landed on a sandy bank of the river and were in for a surprise. There was a small dog that was there and
00:15:07
barking at us. He had a sweater on which was pretty dirty, but I'm quite certain
00:15:14
that that sweater saved his life. There were three of us on the ground the whole
00:15:18
time. Aside from the raft and his dog, we could find really nothing else. No backpack, nothing.
00:15:26
Leo seemed frightened, but Aaron eventually coaxed him to eat a cliff bar the pilot had on board. And at the point
00:15:34
where we had to leave, I had a big thick jacket and I just threw it over him and
00:15:40
scooped him up and brought him on the helicopter. Kathy saw the heartbreaking news on TV.
00:15:48
Only Leo had been rescued. It was uh probably one of the worst days of my life. The treasure hunting community got word
00:15:59
of this and many of these people wanted to help. Determined to find Ry's body, drone
00:16:07
pilots shot hours of footage that was posted online so the treasure hunt community could go through it frame by
00:16:14
frame looking for signs of Randy. Other searchers put boots on the ground. It was rugged. I mean, it was harder
00:16:24
than any treasure searching any of us had done. It was rough. We searched very very hard every day for over a month.
00:16:35
Forest Fen rode in a helicopter to look for Randy. Fen also met with Kathy when she came to
00:16:41
Santa Fe. Fen was sympathetic but told her he wasn't willing to call off the treasure hunt.
00:16:48
I think a lot of people could argue that his priorities are perhaps not what they
00:16:51
should be. That instead of the people or the human cost, he cared a lot more potentially about his treasure hunt. And
00:16:57
the treasure hunt was everything to fend. Even though it put his family at risk.
00:17:03
Forest was harassed over the years. His family was harassed. There's a man who's
00:17:08
done prison for stalking Forest's granddaughter. Get on your knees. Get on your knees.
00:17:14
And this man, Robert Miller, was arrested for burglary in 2018 at Fen's Santa Fe home.
00:17:21
So, what the hell is going on? I thought the poem directed me into here. I thought it said
00:17:26
poem. Yeah. The the treasure map, the treasure hunt, you know. So, you came on the property because of
00:17:33
Are you serious? Yeah. What did his family think about all this? Uh, I think his family had a hard time
00:17:39
with it. Honestly, even with all of that, Forest saw how much good his treasure hunt did for how
00:17:46
many people, and he know that the good far outweighed the bad. The search for the treasure continued,
00:17:53
as did the search for Randy. 6 months after he went missing, his body was found on the riverbank.
00:18:03
Obviously, we were devastated that he wasn't alive. He was a great father, grandfather, and
00:18:12
uncle to my son. With Randy gone, Leo was adopted by none other than Aaron Johnson.
00:18:20
Leo, the nurse who rescued him. Good boy. In the five years with his new family, the ultimate rescue dog has even
00:18:27
learned some new tricks. Okay, turn around. Kathy is happy he's found a new home.
00:18:33
Good boy. But she thinks about her brother every day. I wished he'd been more careful. I
00:18:39
wished he hadn't gone out that day, but you know, he was enjoying what he was doing.
00:18:44
Randy was not the last to die searching for Fen's gold. The next year, the hunt claimed three
00:18:54
more lives. He had become obsessed by Ven's treasure, and that was the only thing that
00:19:05
mattered to him. In June 2017, a year and a half after Randy Billu died, three more men lost
00:19:28
their lives in a matter of weeks. Jeff Murphy was searching in Yellowstone National Park.
00:19:35
Very tragically just misststepped and ended up falling off of a cliff and passing away.
00:19:42
Around the same time, writer Dan Barbaresi went on his first search with his treasure hunting partner Jay Rener.
00:19:49
What was it like going from 4 months of research on a computer to being out there in the wilderness?
00:19:58
The first thing that stood out to me, how much bigger a point on a map is in real life. You know, you look on a map,
00:20:05
oh, this isn't that big. I can cross this area with just my finger alone. Once you're actually out in the wild,
00:20:10
you see how big those distances are and how much land there actually is out there pretty quickly. It really hits you
00:20:15
in the face pretty fast. Reality wasn't the only thing hitting Dan and Jay in the face.
00:20:23
We're out there thinking that we're, you know, adventurers, explorers, and all of
00:20:27
a sudden it starts hailing. And we very quickly realized that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. Days later,
00:20:34
in that same exact area, a Colorado pastor named Paris Wallace set off to search the Rio Grand near the Tal
00:20:42
Junction Bridge. As you move through life, there are those points where you have to seek God to find out what he
00:20:51
wants you to do. And he crossed the river by himself, and it was high waters. Then
00:20:58
Paris's body was recovered 4 days later a few miles down river. His death spurred the New Mexico State Police
00:21:06
Chief to ask Fen to call off the hunt. Fen refused. There was a huge amount of anger at Fen
00:21:14
over this. I mean, you can understand why. I mean, this is a treasure hunt. It doesn't need to exist. And yet, he
00:21:19
wouldn't stop it even after multiple people had died. That's a pretty hard stance to take.
00:21:25
Fen justified continuing the hunt by pointing out that any outdoor activity came with risks.
00:21:32
In the summertime, we jump in a swimming pool, but if somebody drowns in the swimming pool, should should we drain
00:21:38
the pool or should we teach people to swim? That's the way I feel about it. And the treasure community rallied
00:21:45
around Fen in support of the hunt. Here I go. 99.9% of people who go out looking for
00:21:53
his treasure make it home safely with tons of memories and new experiences to treasure.
00:22:00
And Fan did keep warning searchers to be safe. Be more careful. Be more mindful.
00:22:06
He constantly reminded everyone to not go anywhere a 79 or 80-year-old man couldn't go.
00:22:12
Many searchers, Dan says, set off on the treasure trail with great excitement, but sometimes were unprepared for how
00:22:19
wild the wilderness can be. Searchers like Eric Ashby understood the risks and were willing to take them.
00:22:28
Fear was not part of his game. He didn't know how to be afraid. Paul Ashby raised his son, Eric, as a
00:22:36
single father in the mountains of Tennessee. Eric grew up playing sports, riding motorcycles, and was taken by the
00:22:43
quest at the center of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Eric was a great kid. Everybody who knew
00:22:50
him loved him. In 2016, Eric moved to Colorado. He told his dad he was headed west to take part
00:22:58
in his own quest. Fen's Thrill of the Chase. He became obsessed. Dad, I can do this.
00:23:08
Was he motivated by the money the treasure represented or by the recognition solving it?
00:23:16
Oh, sincerely the recognition. The money to him was totally irrelevant. Eric told his father he was going out to
00:23:23
search the Arkansas River outside Canyon City, Colorado. More than a week later,
00:23:28
Paul got a phone call from a woman who said her name was Becca. She told me on the phone, "Mr. Ashby,
00:23:38
your son is drowned." And she says, "I'm sorry, Mr. Ashby, your son is dead." And
00:23:42
she hung up. Becca turned out to be Rebecca Ny, who had worked with Eric. She and three men
00:23:49
were with Eric at the river, and they had drawn up this contract outlining exactly how they'd split the treasure.
00:23:56
She later told police what happened that day. He said he had swam the river that
00:24:02
we were about to cross 10 times before. And so, you know, we we figured though we should be fine.
00:24:08
Becca said they' bought a twoperson raft, but Eric got in alone and had no life preserver.
00:24:16
So, he just um jumped out. It looked like he had made it to the rock, but then we didn't see him anymore. And that
00:24:23
was right where the rapids, you know, would have taken him. Becca told police two of the men went down river to look
00:24:30
for Eric where they saw a photographer who told them he called 911. The photographer also captured this photo of
00:24:38
Eric's empty raft. Hearing someone had called police, Becca and the others went back to their car
00:24:45
and went home. A decision Becca tried to explain. I want to know why why no one stayed
00:24:51
there to tell us this information because again now I'm back. easily in hindsight to see what we should have
00:24:58
done. But in the moment, we had never been involved with any of our life back. Eric stepped in a situation that was
00:25:06
impossible. Nobody could have done it. The thing that makes it worse is that nobody
00:25:12
stopped him and that it was just a case of oh well, Eric was worth so much more to me
00:25:25
than oh well. After Eric's body was recovered, Paul traveled to the river to see where his
00:25:37
son had died. I took the excursion train that comes down the gorge and one of the
00:25:44
company managers was on the train with me and he went into the bar the lounge car and come back with a
00:25:52
beer. He says this is for you and your son and we shared our last beer right there.
00:26:00
Paul says he never heard from Forest Fen. If you had been able to reach Forest Finn, what would you say to him?
00:26:09
Say, "Mr. Finn, is this something one day you're going to have to go to whoever our maker is and say, "Yes,
00:26:16
these people were drowning or dying, falling off cliffs, whatever." And I could have stopped it, and I chose not
00:26:24
to. I was honestly surprised that it didn't end in that summer of 2017. But the hunt did not end. And in March
00:26:33
2020, a fifth man died. About 2 o'clock in the morning, I looked up, the stars were out. I looked over,
00:26:42
you know, to my left, and there was Mike. It was like, "Oh, I I I remember telling myself, "Oh, no, Mike."
00:26:50
What do you think of Forest Fen's decision to continue the treasure hunt? Learn more about the search for the
00:26:55
treasure at 48 hours.com. [Music] Mike was the kind of guy that walked into a room smiling and made everybody
00:27:10
feel better just by coming around. Beth Van O says her longtime boyfriend Mike Sexon knew about Randy, Jeff,
00:27:19
Paris, and Eric, the others who died while searching for Fen's treasure. I think Mike knew of the dangers. He
00:27:27
just maybe ignored a little bit of it or thought he could get around it. It had been nearly 3 years since any
00:27:37
searchers had died. I think people thought that maybe they had gotten past that point where people
00:27:43
aren't going to die anymore looking for this. Mike was convinced he knew where the
00:27:48
treasure was along the Colorado Utah border in Dinosaur National Monument. He made nearly a dozen trips there, but he
00:27:57
needed someone with a four-wheel drive truck to help. That's how his poker buddy, Steven Enloow, got involved with
00:28:04
the hunt. I was very excited to be with Mike on these trips. I just enjoyed traveling
00:28:08
with him. This is the first time Steven has spoken publicly about their ordeal that began
00:28:15
in late February 2020. The men rented snowmobiles in Denver and set off for Mike's spot. The snowmobiles proved to
00:28:24
be too heavy for the depth of snow that we had. Mike and Steven got stuck, but managed
00:28:29
to call 911. Is anybody injured? No. No, we're not injured. Just stuck. Looks like I've got a pretty good
00:28:37
location on you. I'm going to get you some help headed your way. Okay. They were rescued, but the close call
00:28:44
didn't deter the pair from going back out just a few weeks later on March 17th, 2020. Days into the COVID
00:28:52
pandemic, Mike was adamant that he wanted to make another trip before the quarantine
00:28:59
started. Mike and Steven drove to Salt Lake City where they rented snowmobiles they
00:29:06
thought would be better on the terrain. On the second day in the wilderness, they left their truck 5 miles from the
00:29:12
main road and headed off for a day trip on the snowmobiles. We left a lot of our
00:29:18
provisions back of the truck thinking we're just going to be gone three or four hours. We take off the snowmobiles
00:29:23
and we're on the south side of the mountain this time and we ran out of snow. It became dry.
00:29:30
They left even more supplies on the snowmobiles and set off on foot with a sled to carry home the treasure, which
00:29:38
Mike believed was close. We had some some candy bars, a couple of energy bars, and uh maybe a gallon and a half
00:29:45
of water between the two of us. It didn't look that far away, but it proved to be ridge over ridge over ridge. That
00:29:52
took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take. By 6:00 on Wednesday, I was kind of
00:29:59
nervous. I hadn't heard from him. When the men hadn't returned the snowmobiles Wednesday night, the rental
00:30:06
company called the police who called Beth and Steven's wife. Not knowing was just the worst. Just the most awful
00:30:18
thing. Mike tried to hike to higher ground to get a cell signal, but hours later
00:30:26
returned unsuccessful. At that point, both men were so exhausted, all they could do was lay
00:30:33
where they were. The next day, it began to snow. They had no more water. I remember my hands and knees eating the
00:30:44
snow crystals and blood was dripping from my mouth, staining the snow. I cried for help. I asked God. I asked
00:30:50
Jesus. Just anyone call 911. We need help. Desperate for hydration, Steven began
00:30:58
drinking his own urine and felt warmth spread throughout his body. And I I could just feel that was a moment that
00:31:06
I'm going to live. And I told Mike he's got to quit eating the snow when he was shivering and told him what he needed to
00:31:12
do. And he said he'd rather die. On Friday, we could hear helicopters on the other side of the mountain side and
00:31:19
we knew they were out searching for us. And so that gave us hope, but never saw the helicopter. That night, I woke up
00:31:26
about two o'clock in the morning and Mike was about six feet away from me. He was on his hands and knees with his
00:31:32
arms cuped around his head, his head flat on the ground. And he had no shirt on. And so I knew he had died. And I
00:31:40
knew why. Hypothermia. [Music] People suffering from extreme cold can feel hot in the moments just before they
00:31:49
die. I I remember telling myself, "Oh no, Mike." Later that Saturday, Steven heard the
00:31:55
helicopters again, louder this time, and saw them down in the canyon below. With
00:32:00
all the strength he could muster, he grabbed the orange sled and he waved it toward the helicopter. And then just
00:32:07
like in the movies, the helicopter rose up above the cliff and I knew I was saved and I passed out. Next thing I
00:32:14
knew, two guys were picking me up, asking me if I could walk. I couldn't even stand. And I I just remember
00:32:20
whispering, "Goodbye, Mike." Mike was later taken off the mountain in a body bag. Beth got the devastating
00:32:29
news that afternoon. I mean, you can say I love you, but until somebody's really gone and you
00:32:38
can't say it anymore, you just don't realize you have more than that to say. A year later, Beth and Mike's friend Liz
00:32:51
Key find solace in that last photo. His grandmile, the look in his eye of yes, this is where I want to be. I am very
00:33:00
sad that he's gone, but I'm glad that he he did what he loved to do. Mike was the fifth person to die seeking
00:33:13
Fen's treasure. He was also the last because only 3 months later, Forest Fen made a stunning announcement.
00:33:24
The message was very short and simple. It said, "The treasure has been found. [Applause]
00:33:39
Early last summer, just as thousands of treasure hunters were about to begin looking yet again for Forest Fen's chest
00:33:46
of gold, they got a piece of news that left them reeling. My heart stopped. Honestly, I was like,
00:33:53
"Oh my god." Uh, I cannot believe this has actually happened. Did somebody really find it or you know and if so
00:34:00
who? The news broke on June 6th, 2020 when Fen made the stunning announcement in a
00:34:08
brief post he sent to a blog used by the searcher community. Fen wrote, "The treasure has been found
00:34:16
and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago. I do not know the person who found it, but the
00:34:24
poem in my book led him to the precise spot. Overnight, the gold rush that had sustained the searchers was over
00:34:38
and many were left feeling a bit cheated. We didn't have a name. We didn't have where it had been found. We
00:34:44
didn't have any other any other information other than it had been found where he had left it. And is it really
00:34:51
really really true that they found it? I want to see, you know. So the guy did send pictures.
00:34:58
For the first time, searchers could see Forest pouring over the contents of his famous treasure chest.
00:35:04
It looked pretty authentic to me. You know, very authentic. But like everyone else, Katya yearned to
00:35:13
know the Finder's solve. How had he deciphered those clues in the poem? The finder wouldn't say, but a month later,
00:35:22
Fen revealed the treasure had been found in Wyoming. Then two months later, on September 7th,
00:35:31
2020, Forest Fen died at his home where he had just turned 90 years old. I find myself thinking of Forest often
00:35:44
and um I miss our conversations very much. The Finder may have remained anonymous
00:35:53
forever, except for a lawsuit that required the Fen family to reveal his name. The Finder knew it was only a
00:36:01
matter of time. So, he came out to Dan Barbaresi, who wrote an article for Outside magazine. Who did find the
00:36:09
treasure? A man named Jack Stef found the treasure. and he was uh you know a medical student who had gotten obsessed
00:36:16
with this chase uh around 2018. He you know was very very committed to his sol. Hey guys, this is Jack
00:36:23
in this online message to other searchers. Our challenge is to try not to make guesses.
00:36:31
Jack Steuf had shared his approach to cracking fence poem. It is simple and clear and
00:36:37
straightforward. You need simplicity in yourself. Dan says Jack had been searching for at
00:36:45
least two years. And then one day in a Wyoming forest, Jack says he uncovered the chest. It had
00:36:54
almost been covered by leaves and debris, but Jack said the lid was still visible.
00:37:00
He became very paranoid that somebody was going to stumble upon him in that moment. Jack says he hightailed it to
00:37:06
Santa Fe where these photos were taken. They seemed to back up Jack's story, but
00:37:12
fan watcher Toby Eunis was skeptical. Here is my theory. The hunt was moving forward. Forest was aging.
00:37:24
The family, Forest's family, was frustrated with the state of the search. Their houses had been broken into.
00:37:32
Their children had been threatened with kidnapping. They were never lovers of the Forest Fen treasure hunt.
00:37:38
Toby has no evidence, but believes that Fen, knowing he had only months to live,
00:37:44
looked around for someone who was close to finding the treasure. Toby believes Fen reached out to Jack. I imagine this
00:37:53
is how it went. I want you to know that I'm dying. I want you to know that I don't want to leave this treasure hunt
00:38:00
to my family and I'm going to ask you for a favor. Forest had a a saying that he used often. There's an old saying,
00:38:07
two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. Jack refused our request for an
00:38:13
interview, but denied he had any help from Fen. as he wrote online, "I am not and was never employed by Forest, nor
00:38:23
did he pick me in any way to retrieve the treasure. I was a stranger to him and found the treasure as he designed it
00:38:32
to be found." I do not believe it is part of a conspiracy engineered by Fen to give
00:38:38
Jack the treasure or anything else of that sort. Dan is in a unique position because he's
00:38:43
the only journalist who has interviewed Jack. Jack even allowed Dan to examine the treasure. These photos have rarely
00:38:52
been seen. You were able to actually hold the treasure, to touch it, to see it in
00:38:57
person. Yes. You know, I have seen and touched and felt and gone through the chest. It
00:39:01
was kind of an incredible moment, honestly. Jack told Dan he will not reveal the exact spot where he found the
00:39:07
chest because he fears it would become a tourist attraction that would ruin the area's serenity and
00:39:15
natural beauty. I think we will never find out truly where it was found. And there could be another reason. Fen's
00:39:27
original intent to lay down and die at the very spot where he hid his treasure. I don't want to be buried.
00:39:38
If I had my way, I'd lay down under a tree and go and uh just like a big old buffalo lays down
00:39:47
and dies. Go back to nature. Become become part of the earth again. Jack says he offered to put Fen's ashes
00:39:57
in that special spot, but will not say if the family accepted his offer. Dan says he doesn't know what Jack intends
00:40:06
to do with the treasure, whether he will sell it peace meal or as one, or perhaps
00:40:11
lease it for display. What is in the end the legacy of Forest Fen? I think the legacy of Forest Fen is extremely
00:40:20
complicated. I think that there were a lot of good things that happened because of it. There were also some really bad
00:40:23
things that happened because of it. But if you're Paul Ashby, who lost his only son, Eric, to the hunt, one of the
00:40:30
five men to die chasing the thrill, Fen's legacy is not complicated at all. He was reckless. He was willing to
00:40:42
ignore the fact that people were dying because all these other people worshiped him.
00:40:53
A lot of people still do look up to Forest Fen. And maybe that's not so surprising.
00:41:03
When you feel a dream, you know, live your dream out, follow your heart. And okay, so I didn't find the treasure, but
00:41:10
I found many treasures. This in itself is the biggest treasure of all that I found. So many magical, wonderful things
00:41:19
I could never replace um without that treasure hunt. I'm so grateful for Forest. Thank you. Thank you, Forest.
00:41:29
[Music] CBS next Saturday. 48 Hours brings you backtoback episodes all summer long.
00:41:47
This week, killer contestants. He is the serial killer that we always suspected him to be.
00:41:51
You just want to wake up and have it not be real. Up 48 hours prime time double feature next Saturday 98 central on CBS
00:41:58
and streaming on Paramount Plus.