Tourist Vanished in North Carolina — His Remains Found in Heron Nest 40 Feet High… | HO!!

CROATAN NATIONAL FOREST, N.C. — Human bones do not belong in the sky. Yet in October 2011, nearly 40 feet above the swamp floor in a cypress tree, a biologist’s binoculars picked out a sneaker woven into a massive heron’s nest. Tangles of denim and pale bone fragments poked through branches hardened by mud. What began as a routine bird survey quickly unraveled into one of the strangest criminal cases in North Carolina history.

The remains belonged to 29-year-old David Scott Howell, a Newport man who had disappeared months earlier while kayaking on Catfish Lake. What investigators would later conclude was that a fight, a murder, and a flood had conspired with nature to hide his body in a place no one would ever have searched—until a colony of great blue herons unknowingly preserved the evidence.

The Disappearance

On February 28, 2011, Howell set out for a day trip with his longtime friend, 31-year-old Christopher Davis McCutchen. Both were outdoorsmen, familiar with the 60,000 acres of Croatan National Forest’s pine woods, blackwater swamps, and shallow lakes.

They launched their kayaks—Howell’s was blue, McCutchen’s red or orange—from the Pine Cliff Recreation Area on Catfish Lake. The morning was cool and overcast, the air in the 40s, the water far colder. Howell called his mother around 9:30 a.m. to say he was heading out but gave no indication of trouble.

By evening, only McCutchen returned. At 7 p.m., he called 911, telling dispatchers that their kayaks had capsized around 2:30 p.m. when a strong wind swept across the lake. According to his story, both men went into the frigid water. He claimed he watched Howell cling to his overturned kayak before losing sight of him. Exhausted and hypothermic, McCutchen said he struggled ashore and wandered the forest for hours before reaching his car and making the call.

Search teams quickly mobilized. Deputies, wildlife officers, and volunteers launched boats, deployed side-scan sonar, and combed the swamp on foot. A Coast Guard helicopter swept the lake with thermal cameras. Divers plunged into the cold, silty water.

The only trace they found was Howell’s blue kayak, discovered half-submerged among reeds on the far side of the lake. No life jacket, no clothing, no body.

After a week, the search was suspended. Howell was officially listed as missing. McCutchen’s story stood as the only version of events, but cracks had already begun to show.

Doubts Emerge

Investigators soon noticed troubling inconsistencies. Why had McCutchen waited nearly five hours to call 911? Why did his medical exam show little evidence of hypothermia after he claimed to have spent hours wet and wandering in the woods?

Geography raised more questions. The kayak’s location didn’t match McCutchen’s account of where the accident happened. Experts analyzing wind and current data concluded it was “extremely unlikely” the boat drifted there naturally.

Friends and family described Howell as easygoing, outdoorsy, but not without friction in his friendships. Detectives learned he and McCutchen had argued in the weeks before the trip—possibly over money, possibly over a woman. Theories of motive began to surface.

Still, without a body, prosecutors could prove nothing. The case stalled. Spring turned to summer, summer to fall. Howell’s family clung to fading hope, while McCutchen returned quietly to his life.

A Discovery in the Trees

On October 12, 2011, eight months after Howell vanished, a team of ornithologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set out to survey great blue heron colonies deep in the forest. One researcher trained his binoculars on a sprawling nest high in a bald cypress. Something unusual caught his eye: a sneaker, its rubber sole glaring white against mud and twigs. Looking closer, he saw scraps of denim and what appeared to be bone.

Authorities were summoned. Climbing specialists ascended the tree and began the grim task of removing what turned out to be human remains woven into the herons’ nest. Alongside the sneaker were fragments of jeans, decayed fabric, and bones—including part of a skull.

The items were rushed to the state forensic lab. Dental records confirmed the remains belonged to David Scott Howell.

Murder, Not Misadventure

The skeletal evidence changed everything. Forensic anthropologists discovered linear fractures in Howell’s skull, the kind caused by blunt trauma during life—not drowning or postmortem damage. The wounds were narrow and elongated, consistent with the shape of a kayak paddle.

The conclusion was inescapable: Howell had been struck and killed, not swept away by accident.

Investigators now believed McCutchen had attacked his friend on the lake, striking him with his paddle after their argument escalated. He likely dumped Howell’s body in a flooded channel feeding the lake, then overturned the kayak to stage an accident. His hours-long delay in calling authorities, detectives concluded, was time spent hiding evidence and rehearsing a story.

But one mystery remained: how did the body end up 40 feet in the air?

The Flood That Lifted a Body

Hydrologists offered the answer. Weeks after Howell’s disappearance, the region was hit by heavy spring rains that flooded rivers and swamps, raising water levels several meters. The currents carried Howell’s body into a stand of cypress trees. As waters peaked, the corpse snagged in the branches. When the flood receded, the body remained suspended high above the swamp floor.

That summer, a heron colony returned and, following instinct, built its nest directly over the remains. Bits of clothing and bone were woven into the structure. The forest, in its strange way, had kept a secret until science stumbled upon it.

Arrest and Trial

On November 3, 2011, armed with the forensic report, the Craven County Sheriff’s Office arrested Christopher Davis McCutchen. He was charged with second-degree murder.

At his 2014 trial, prosecutors laid out their case: the motive of simmering conflict, the lies and inconsistencies in McCutchen’s statements, the kayak’s improbable location, and the fatal fractures in Howell’s skull. Expert witnesses explained the flood’s role in lifting the body into the tree and the herons’ role in preserving it.

The defense argued the death was a tragic accident, that the injuries could have resulted from debris or postmortem damage. But the jury was unconvinced.

McCutchen was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Nature as Witness

The story left both investigators and the public stunned. A violent crime, hidden in a swamp, was revealed only because of an extraordinary chain of natural events: floodwaters, a tree, and a colony of birds.

“The river carried him up to the sky,” one detective remarked at the time. “The birds held onto him until we could see the truth.”

For Howell’s family, the discovery, though grisly, brought closure after months of agony. For law enforcement, it underscored the unpredictability of evidence and the importance of patience in unsolved cases.

And for the community around Croatan National Forest, the case remains an eerie reminder that in nature, nothing stays hidden forever.