I don’t know who turned in the camera, or how it’s even still intact. I know even less about the case it’s connected to. I’m a detective currently trying to find Amanda Walters, Benny Walters, and Jane Smith. They went missing almost a week ago.
The camera in question belonged to Amanda. It was dropped off by an unidentified man or woman on July 16th at 2:06 PM, inside of a small brown box. A few minutes later at 2:09 PM, we received a call from Amanda and Benny’s mother, reporting them missing.
Amanda was home for the summer visiting her family. According to their mother, both Amanda and Benny had expressed interest in going caving, and had done so twice before this incident, each time with a new tour guide. Their guide this time was Rubert Henderson, a man connected to three other missing person’s cases. Three that we know of. He has no record of any kind, no identification. Nothing. He doesn’t exit. Yet there he is, on the footage, leading them into this unknown cave.
Amanda carried a camera with her for the entire trip, I assume to show her friends and family afterwards. According to their mothers, Jane was a close friend to Amanda and had tagged along somewhat last minute to spend more time with her before she went back off to college. The camera must have some decent memory, as the footage goes on for twenty hours. Their trip through the cave only took about thirty minutes.
Watching Rubert smile in this footage makes me sick, especially because he makes it seem so genuine. There’s nothing suspicious about him on the surface. He looks perfectly normal, he makes the right amount of eye contact and is at least a decent conversationalist. The strangest thing about him is that his victims have no relation to him or each other. I wonder if he picks them at random.
Not much happens in the first thirty minutes of footage. Rubert guides them through the cave, spewing facts about it that I can’t verify since I have no clue where on Earth this cave is. All pretty normal up until they reach a small tunnel. Rubert tells them to crawl through. It’s a tight fit, but they all manage. First up is Benny, since he’s the youngest and smallest of the group. Rubert tells Amanda that as soon as Benny’s feet are out of sight, she can follow, and she complies. Benny’s gone and she starts crawling through. She laughs and jokes about getting stuck, but she makes it. Makes it where, I don’t know, because as soon as she reaches the point where Benny disappeared, the screen goes dark. And no, the footage isn’t corrupted. She crawls into a space with seemingly no light. And then the camera falls. No sound from Amanda, no screaming or talking. Just the camera falling into a dark abyss. The only thing the audio picks up is the wind as the camera drops.
For a few brief frames as the camera spins out of control, you can see the opening she crawled through. It quickly becomes a small speck of light, and then it’s gone. And for nineteen and a half hours, the camera continues to fall. I’ve reviewed this footage hundreds of times but I can’t see where Amanda goes. As soon as the camera starts to fall, it flips up to show the opening, and Amanda just isn’t there. At first I skipped through the hours of darkness, but after reaching every dead end I could with this investigation, I caved and watched the whole thing. Multiple times. But there’s just nothing. Only the rushing wind and surrounding darkness until the camera runs out of memory.
I don’t know where these kids are, or what happened to them. I don’t know where this cave is, or where the tunnel leads. I don’t know where Rubert is, or why he did this. And I have no clue how I’m going to explain this to their parents.
If you ever meet a man named Rubert Henderson, do not interact with him. Stay away at all costs, because I don’t know who or what he is.