Joshua Maddux

On the morning of May 8th, 2008, Joshua Maddux told his family he was going to go for a walk. It was a chilly-but-nice day, and a morning walk or hike was not at all unusual for the outdoorsy 18-year-old. Sadly, he never came home, and attempts to track him down proved fruitless for his loved ones…

Joshua Maddux’s story has caught the attention of the public in equal parts because of how strange his death was, and because of how vibrant his life was. His family, particularly his older sisters; Ruth and Kate, have done their part to tell the world about the joy and inspiration he brought to those around him. The story of his life, being a passionate artist, but also someone who struggled with a deep family tragedy has made him seem relatable to those who never met him. This connection, however one-sided, no doubt contributes to the passion of the armchair detectives and true crime enthusiasts who have become obsessed with untangling the mystery of his death. But before we get into his death, we must first talk about his life.

Joshua Maddux grew up in Woodland Park Colorado, a neighborhood outside of Colorado springs. It’s a town with a rich history, which is evident in the downtown area where buildings have been preserved or later built to fit the aesthetic of an old west mountain town. Colorful saloon-style buildings dot the city, though the logging industry that propped up the town has been heavily regulated in favor of conservation. Now, forested mountains overlook the town, the most famous of which is Pike’s Peak.

The house Josh grew up in was just a short walk from both the wilderness and the history in the town. A few blocks to the east were forested hills with hiking trails, and a stone's throw away from Josh’s house was the site of an old gambling saloon known as Thunderhead Ranch. Growing up in a city with nature being an ever-present backdrop had a profound effect on Josh. His sister Ruth would later tell the media that “He loved animals and the outdoors: hiking, fishing, and camping with his friends.”

Ruth had nothing but good things to say about Josh. In a statement given to the local Pikes Peak Courier Ruth said "He was my best friend and he always inspired me to strive for greatness. Josh would tell me that one should never say anything bad about anyone else, ever, and I tried to be more like him. Josh was one of the nicest people I have ever met, and I am very proud to be his sister." Ruth said that Josh was intelligent and creative. She said he’d even tried to draw his own comic series called Stickman and Smiley. She said that Josh had a real talent for creative writing as well "Josh loved to read and was a brilliant writer. Josh was a wonderful person with a bright light that enriched the lives of everyone around him." Ruth said that Josh was the kind of person who would take up learning a new instrument, then go around town making fast friends to make up songs with.

In a later interview with the Huffington Post, Josh’s other sister Kate talked about Josh’s high school years. She said “His IQ was off the charts. He spent most of his time writing fictional stories and playing music. He had an interesting and unique sense of style. People in his high school class knew him for being that ‘awesome kid’ who wore a top hat and brought a briefcase to school instead of a backpack. There was this subtle sophistication about him that made him interesting and a standout.”

Like any family though, the Madduxs had their share of hardships. Josh’s older brother Zachary committed suicide the week he was supposed to graduate high school. Josh was just sixteen at the time and had always looked up to his older brother. He took the loss very hard. Josh’s father Mike later spoke to the Pikes Peak courier about Zachary, saying "It was a big shock for the family and a big shock for Josh. He thought highly of his older brother. It's tough as a parent. You try to raise your kids and when they get close to 18, you think they're pretty much grown up, but they're not. They still need a lot of help." Josh was still the friendly outgoing boy he’d always been, but he was clearly in mourning the last two years of high school.

On the morning of May 8th, 2008 Josh told his family he was going to go for a walk. It was a chilly, but nice day, and a morning walk or hike was not at all unusual for Josh. Josh never came home from that walk.

His family was worried, but they did not think that anything drastic had happened. Kate would later remark that Josh had hinted at running away before "Josh was a free spirit, and he always told us that he was going to have a great adventure and he may not talk to us for a while. When he said 'a while,' we thought maybe a few years."

While Kate wondered if Josh had finally left to start the grand adventure she’d always talked about, their father Mike was frantic. He later told the Pikes Peak courier “I went to work one day and came home and he wasn't there. The next day he still didn't come home. I called all his friends. Nobody's seen him. Nobody knows where he is. I didn't know what to do so I called the police.” Mike called on the 13th after he’d managed to contact all of Josh’s friends, and he felt that they’d given him more than enough time to return on his own. When Mike called, the police were quick to float the idea that Josh may have just run away, as he was an adult and there were no signs of foul play.

The Police did post missing person notices, they mentioned the distinguishing features Josh had, and how he was missing the tip of his right index finger, which had been lost in a bicycle accident when he was young. The police also posted on the notices that Josh was likely still grieving the death of Zachary, and may be in mental distress.

The weeks would turn to months, which turned into years. Kate remained hopeful, despite the time passing. She would later write about where she thought Josh might be in the Woodland Park News. Her original letter has since been deleted, but it’s been archived in the Daily Mail article about the case. Kate said “since Josh was 18, it has been reasonable to assume he may have decided to leave town to start a new life. As one of his two older sisters, I have always chosen to believe that this was the case. I have expected Josh to return home to my father’s house at any time with a wife and small children so that they can meet their grandparents and two aunts. Josh has always been known for his musical and literary talent, so maybe we would find him playing music with a band on tour, or catch him writing successful novels under a pen name so that he could keep his preferred lifestyle of solitude in the woods.”

Mike had different ideas of where Josh might have gone. After Josh vanished, Mike searched nearby campgrounds and homeless shelters in Colorado Springs and he always kept an eye out when he was in a crowd. He hoped Josh had run away too but considered the possibility that Josh might have committed suicide. In addition to dealing with the worry about his son, Mike and his wife divorced sometime after Josh’s disappearance. Mike elected to stay in the house the family had grown up in case Josh returned. Years later Mike would tell the Pikes Peak Courier that he still thinks about Josh every day  "I pray for him every single day. If he's in heaven, I pray he's at peace. If he's here on Earth somewhere, I pray he's OK. The pain is so great. I just have to accept it, grieve and move on. But I want people to remember Josh."

Katre told the Huffington Post that “We had hope of him being alive, and I feel like in a sense he continued to live on with us, because we had so many dreams of what he could possibly be doing.”

Though the family tried to remain hopeful, anytime there was a body found in or near Woodland Park, the media, and Josh’s family braced themselves for the possibility that the remains might belong to Josh. Every town has a case or two that the media jumps on anytime a body is found. For Woodland park, Josh’s was not the only case. Another prolific one involved a boy named Lucas Whyte. For Lucas’s family, finding a body might finally lead to an arrest. Anytime a John Doe was found nearby, the Maddux’s hoped that it wasn’t Josh, and the Whyte’s hoped that it might be Lucas, as finding his remains might finally lead to justice.

In the Late summer of 2015, construction crews began demolishing a cabin outside of the Old Thunderhead Ranch property near the Maddux family home. The cabin had been an exterior structure, and though the main property had been restored, the cabin had been converted into a rental, then abandoned since about 2005.

On August 7th the crew brought in an earth mover to start the serious demolition. When they reached the fireplace, they moved a large breakfast bar table out of the way and made a gruesome discovery. The cabin’s owner, Chuck Murphy would later tell the media about the discovery. There was a body lodged in the chimney. The knees were above the head but the legs were dislodged. The body was wearing only a sweater and was partially mummified, but the legs had been skeletonized. The body was upside down in the fetal position and had a hand covering its face. Murphy has said that because of the heavy machinery used to peel back the chimney, the position the body was found in may not have been the position the body was in before, and the construction could have disturbed the remains.

In early September of 2015 reporter Bill Vogrin of the Pikes Peak Courier called up Mike Maddux, and Pam Whyte, the mother of the other missing boy Lucas Whyte to discuss the possibility that the body could be one of their children.

Mike poured his heart out in this interview He said that  "[Josh] was such a wonderful boy. The kindest, nicest, brightest boy. He's been gone seven years now. Nobody's ever heard a word."

This was the first public interview where Mike hinted that he worried that Josh may have followed in his older brother’s footsteps, saying "I buried his older brother two years before and it was so difficult on Josh. When his brother died, it pushed him over the edge."

But Mike was not set on this theory, he still wondered about Josh running away, or perhaps running into some kind of foul play. "For a long time, every time the phone would ring I expected it to be the morgue or police. Once they found a body in New Mexico and thought it might be him. You just play a waiting game. You have an empty chair at the table and an empty place in your heart. At least, with my older son, I know where he's buried. At least I have that closure. With Josh, you don't know and you just wait. And every time I see a report like last week I get a sick feeling in my stomach. I wonder if they've found my son."

Mike said he does not let Josh’s disappearance consume him "At some point, you've gotta accept the fact Josh may never come home and we may never know what happened to him. You can't live with an open wound. This destroyed our family. I'm grateful to have my two girls. All you can do is try to keep working and try to find any happiness you can, if there is any. There's no answers. And cases like the recent one, it reopens the wounds. Then I wait and see. You pray it's not your son, but you know it's somebody's son or daughter. And they cared about them and loved them and miss them. Like we do."

In Kate's aforementioned letter about Josh in the Woodland Park news she said that “Sometimes in life, our stories don’t have happy endings. I’m sorry to say that this is one of those stories…” Weeks after this interview, the body would be formally ID’d as Josh through dental records. But, to stay with the interview for a bit longer, some of Pam Whyte’s statements given during this interview draw interesting parallels to suspicious details in Josh’s case that would come up later. Lucas Whyte had been 24 when he vanished and was working hard to care for his son. Lucas had been hanging out with some friends when they dropped him off at a gas station to meet up with someone. He got into a van and vanished off the face of the earth. Pam strongly suspects she knew who picked up Lucas, and that they killed him, but the police insist that he likely ran away. The police did interview the suspect several times but told Pam that they couldn’t do anything unless they found a body. Pam said that police “couldn't make an arrest because they can't find Luke's remains. That guy's living happily ever after."

This story is interesting because, for quite some time after Josh vanished, friends and acquaintances had been calling the police with a tip about someone they found suspicious. The tipsters claimed that a local man who knew Josh had been bragging about killing him. But police declined to investigate.

This is the kind of coincidence, where, on TV the suspect for both cases would be the same person, and would lead to some kind of monumental break in both cases. In reality, Woodland Park has a population of nearly 8,000 people and is near other metropolitan areas. The two suspects are likely not the same person, but the unwillingness of police to investigate does start to paint a picture of a department unwilling to listen to local tips or follow up on challenging leads.

These anonymous tips hinting at foul play would only become more credible as the strange circumstances surrounding Josh’s remains came to light.

The abandoned Cabin where Josh’s body had been found had been in the owner’s family for 60 years, bought near the end of the cabin's tenure as part of the thunderhead ranch property. After the operation was shut down, Murphy's brother lived in the cabin for the better part of 30 years, then the cabin was abandoned around 2005.

The Thunderhead ranch building nearby was renovated in 2013, but the extant cabin was left untouched. Murphy told the Sun-Gazette that "Occasionally, we'd go in there to check on it and there were mice and chipmunks and raccoons. It smelled bad." Vandals sometimes broke in, but Murphy does not remember when the breakfast bar was ripped off of the far wall and put in front of the fireplace. He did recall that it had been there for some time, and he had never felt the urge to move it to check the fireplace. He said "We had really no reason to go in there except to tear the building down," They were tearing it down to make way for a new housing development.

The fact that the cabin was just a few blocks from the Maddux family home was deeply upsetting for his family. Kate told the Huffington Post that "One of the most traumatic things about this story is that the cabin he was found in is literally two blocks away from my dad's house. We looked through every part of the woods we thought he could walk to, but that cabin never came up." Kate and the rest of Josh’s family really could not figure out why he would have been visiting the cabin in the first place.

Kate did say that despite the tragedy of finding out her brother had passed, it did help to bring the family some closure "The last seven years has been really difficult and painful. But given the strange circumstances, it's kind of a miracle that we're having the opportunity now to give him the proper service and burial he deserves. He's not lost anymore. This isn’t how we wanted him to come home, but he has come home, and that’s important."

Though Murphy was another prominent voice speaking about Josh's case to the media, the police did not ask him too many questions during their investigation. He was left largely out of the loop while County Coroner Al Born put together his findings. A transfer between departments also complicated things, and the police departments handling the investigation were swapped early on due to a zoning issue. The case went from being handled by the local Woodland Park Police to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Neither police department spoke very much with the media, but because Born was the coroner for both departments he became sort of the face of law enforcement to the media, as he was always ready to give interviews and stayed on the case the whole time.

September 29th was when the news formally broke that the remains belonged to Josh, and that same day Born spoke with the media to say that the autopsy had conclusively determined that Josh’s death was an accident. He told the Pikes Peak Courier that “It was not a homicide. There was no indication of trauma.” He then oddly threw in that it seemed like it had been a “horrible” death.

Born spoke with several other media outlets around the 29th to elaborate on his findings. He spoke with the Pikes Peak Courier, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Huffington Post to explain why Josh’s death showed no indication of foul play.

Born said that Josh had climbed down the building and that "It appears to have been a voluntary act to gain access." He said that Maddux was very tall and skinny, and was probably shimmying down the chimney “Santa Claus style” to get in, but when he reached the bottom there was a wood-burning insert that would have made it challenging to get out. Born said that the insert would have made it impossible for Josh to maneuver out from the position he was in.

In his Huffington Post interview, Born gave a combination of oddly detailed but speculative statements on Josh's death. He told them that  "It was not an instant death. How he died is only a matter of speculation, but we know he did not starve to death because that takes many weeks. So then you go down the chain and you have dehydration, which can take just a few days and the other thing would be hypothermia, which could take a day or two. We have no evidence to say which one came first. He could have been yelling, but nobody would have heard him. Houses were quite distant and they probably wouldn’t have heard anything anyway, because the sound [would have been] muffled because of his location in the chimney."

Born did go on to express his condolences though. "I can't imagine the pain that family went through. The first one -- they knew where that person is and could bring closure. For the second, there was seven years before they could bring closure. That interim had to be brutal."

He said during a press conference that was quoted by papers all over the country that “There are going to be some questions that are unanswerable.”

The demolition of the Cabin was finished on September 30th, just two days after Josh’s remains were identified. Born said that the death investigation had been fully completed before the demolition crew was given the Okay to finish the job. Exactly how long the death investigation went on for, and the exact details of the autopsy were not made public. The demolition was completed before Chuck Murphy learned anything about Born’s findings.

On October 2nd the story of Josh’s death made international news. Born’s remarks on how gruesome Josh’s death had been caught the attention of international news networks and papers. The Daily Telegraph in Sydney Australia called their piece on the case “Horror of Teen in Cabin Coffin.” Kate and Ruth’s sentimental remarks also captured the attention of the public, with papers as far away as Dubai quoting Kate’s heartfelt letter she’d written about her brother.

Though papers would put both Al Born's remarks about the autopsy, and Chuck Murphy's remarks about the history of Thunderhead Ranch side by side, the two had not actually spoken, and neither was aware of anything the other had said to the media. As soon as the news broke that Josh’s death was being ruled an accident Chuck Murphy called the police demanding the investigation be reopened.

Throughout the course of the investigation, Murphy was not at all consulted on anything about the cabin or the property. The coroner's office did not confer with him about the history or anything he knew about the property, and once he saw their explanation, he immediately knew they were wrong. On October 3rd Murphy and Born met up to discuss how Born’s theories did not at all line up with the structure of the cabin. They debated for a few hours but could not agree on anything, and both went to the media with their respective theories.

The cabin had actually had an add-on built in 1990, which included the part of the cabin where the chimney was. When the chimney was built, Murphy had the contractors install a heavy iron mesh grate into the brickwork near the top to keep animals out. He told the Pikes Peak Courier that "It was a heavy wire grate, a wire mesh, installed across the chimney about one row of bricks from the top. We didn't want trouble with raccoons and things getting in the chimney."

Murphy said that investigators did not know about the mesh because his contractors had taken away a lot of the metalwork early on to separate it from the other debris "They were just gathering up all the steel, angle iron and things as part of the demolition. They had no idea the mesh had any significance."

Born seemingly did not want to acknowledge Murphy’s explanation for this in the media. He told the Courier that "Nobody saw the metal mesh. We didn't see it in any of our photos. It may have disappeared." He speculated that a chimney sweep might have removed it years prior or it might have rusted away, but did not want to acknowledge Murphy’s explanation.

Murphy also told the Courier about a disturbing detail that neither law enforcement nor the coroner's office had shared with the media. When Josh’s body was found he was wearing only a long sleeve thermal shirt. But the rest of his clothes were not missing. His pants, underwear, and socks were all right outside the fireplace on the other side of the breakfast bar. Murphy does not see any reason why Josh would take off his pants, underwear, shoes, and socks, and then go outside the cabin, just to climb up the house and down the chimney when he knew he couldn’t get out because of both the heatilator insert and the breakfast bar blocking his way back in.

In regards to the clothes Born said "This one really taxed our brains. We found his clothes just outside the firebox. He only had on a thermal T-shirt. 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. It's a real puzzler."

Of course, drugs can always be an explanation for irrational thinking. During the autopsy, they attempted to test for illegal drugs but the testing was difficult because of how decomposed Josh’s body was, but Born said that Josh’s family had told authorities that he did not use illegal drugs.

Murphy said "It's a real conundrum. A tragic, terrible story. All I know is he did not go down that chimney. He got in the fireplace and went up. But why?." Murphy is absolutely convinced that Maddux was murdered. He thinks that Josh was either trapped in the chimney and left to die, or he was killed in the cabin and his body was stuffed in the chimney.

Born acknowledged that the fact that Josh had decided to leave the cabin and come back in through the top of the chimney, knowing he would be trapped was strange "The furniture in front of the fireplace . . . we can't answer that question. It would have trapped him in the firebox. But there's no evidence he was ever in the firebox or went up the chimney." Born told the media that "We looked at photos and we talked to Chuck Murphy about his memory of the chimney's construction and we took everything into consideration. And we still have no evidence of a homicide."

None of the strange circumstances surrounding Josh’s death had any sway on Born’s opinion, "We've come up with the most plausible explanation and it will remain an accident. He did come down the chimney. That's our conclusion."

Born said that in order for foul play to be considered there needed to be more evidence. He spoke with the Courier and the Denver post to elaborate on this more. "The hard tissue showed no signs of any trauma. There were no broken bones There were no knife marks. There were no bullet holes." He also said there was no rope or duct tape, and the soot in the fireplace was not disturbed in a way to indicate a struggle. Though it's important to remember the fireplace was in the process of being demolished when Josh’s body was found. Meaning that the debris and soot would have been heavily disrupted by the demolition before the investigation started.  Born said that if someone had put Josh in there "It would take at least two people to move him into the position he was in, as neatly packaged as he was inside the chamber. If there were more people involved we have absolutely no clues."

Born told the media that Josh likely died of hypothermia because the temperatures on the day he was missing went into the 20s at night. But he could not say conclusively what the cause of death was. This is very important, some sources on Josh’s case took this to mean that hypothermia was the determined and definitive cause of death. But it’s not, if Born only said ‘likely’ that means the official cause of death could not have been determined. Something such as strangulation may not have shown up on skeletal remains, making Murphy’s theory about Josh being murdered a little more plausible.

Along with the media coverage of the suspicious nature of Josh’s death, came the revelation that several people in town had been calling the police since Josh vanished, claiming that someone had killed him. Rumors among locals and on deleted social media posts pointed to a troubled man who had apparently been bragging that he’d murdered Josh. Many residents in Woodland Park had known about these rumors for years, but they did not catch the attention of the media until October of 2015.

Born told the media that the suspect was someone who had a long criminal record, and was currently in prison in Texas. He’d also spent time in jail in Portland and Seattle, and had had legal troubles in New Mexico. Born said the main reason for discounting this man as a suspect was that he was living a transient, often homeless lifestyle and they couldn’t find any evidence he was in Woodland Park when Josh vanished. The suspect was from Woodland Park and visited often, but nothing could place him there at the time.

Born was skeptical about any of those tips, telling the Pikes Peak Courier "There's a lot of hearsay that 'this person was the last one to see him' and that kind of thing. But they can't give me times and specifics. And we can't generate stuff that goes back seven years. These theories could only make sense if it was multiple men involved."

The name of this suspect might have stayed out of the media spotlight if not for a Reddit comment made by an anonymous user sometime in 2015. His handle was Gentamangina and though he never revealed his name, he has never taken his comments down, and much of what he said lined up with the evidence presented. The post is quite long, so parts of it will be broken down with the evidence it presents.

The post began with “I went to high school with this skinny dorky hippy named Andy who played guitar in a band. I was never good friends with him or anything, but a year or so after I graduated one of my good friends, Josh, started hanging out with him and then went missing. Last I heard, Andy was telling another friend, "Yeah, me and Josh have been spending a lot of time together, we're planning a trip to New Mexico!"

The poster then went on to say they didn’t find that to be concerning at all until someone sent them articles about what this ‘Andy’ had gotten up to in New Mexico. The poster linked the articles, which were about one Andrew Newman, who had stabbed a man to death in 2009.

The Reddit poster went on to say “Turns out that in addition to becoming a lot scarier looking, Andy had indeed headed down to New Mexico, where he found himself shootin the shit with the caretaker of a disabled guy, and got invited over to their apartment. Caretaker gets in the shower, and when he comes back out, the disabled guy is stabbed to death and Andy's gone. When Andy got arrested, he also claimed to have killed a woman in Taos and stuffed her body in a barrel. The cops had indeed found a woman stuffed in a barrel in Taos, but already had somebody in custody for it and decided to stick with that guy instead. Years later, I found out that the caretaker had died in a bar fight, and without him the cops didn't have much in the way of evidence somehow, so that case against Andy was dropped, too.”

This all lines up with local articles. The Albuquerque Journal identified the murdered man as Anthony Schneider and confirmed that Newman had stabbed him several times on May 2nd of 2009. Apparently, Newman had made friends with the man’s caretaker, James Wellito, and Wellito would sometimes let him stay with him when he was in town. The two would drink together. Newman has had consistent mental health issues and was identified because he left behind documents with his name on them. He made no attempt to cover up the murder.

In late June, Newman wandered to Houston by hopping on a train. He was caught trying to hitchhike, but let off with a warning, and his ID was not taken. Then a few days later he’d been going house to house asking for food and water. He knocked on a door where two teenagers were home, and they had sympathy for him in the Texas heat. They invited him in and gave him water, then immediately called their parents. Their dad found out that Newman was trying to keep traveling, and offered to take him to the next county over. But when Newman got in the car he drove him straight to the sheriff's station.

Police took his fingerprints and got multiple hits. There was a warrant he’d bailed on for burglary in Seattle, and they arrested him for the stabbing on May 2nd.

The anonymous Redditor’s claim about the charges being dropped was true as well. On September 9th during the plea hearing, Andrew’s defense attorney Robert Work entered a plea of not guilty. Work greeted the judge that morning with Newman in tow, and though the only court records are written transcripts, it appears that he was very unwell. Work said “Mr. Newman has been assigned to be my client, but Mr. Newman is obviously in pretty bad shape this morning. I’m not sure he knows what’s going on, so I need to enter a plea of not guilty on his behalf.” What followed next was a transcript of Work attempting to explain himself but evidently being interrupted, or distracted by Newman’s state of being. He said “I would ask that- I’m aware, as his attorney, what the charges are, but I’ve tried to talk to him. The best we can get- see if he’s in better-... I’d ask that a reasonable bond be set.”

The judge responded with “Based upon the fact that he cannot fully understand, what we’re going to do this morning, I will enter a plea of not guilty on his behalf.” Just days later on September 12th of 2009, Newman attempted to escape from jail and those charges were added to the murder charge. The trial went on for a few years, from September of 2009 to May 12th of 2011.

On May 6th of 2010, Newman was committed to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas. There he would be evaluated to see if he was fit to stand trial. The competency Hearing was held on September 8th of 2010. In March of 2011, Newman was ordered to undergo DNA testing.

Whatever the mental health professionals and DNA testing had revealed, the case began to move forward to trial. In April of  2011, Newman was ordered to start preparing for the trial.

Then on May 12th of  the event description on the Bernalillo County Court website says simply: FILING NOLLE PROSEQUI ON NEWMAN; FOR THE REASON THE SOLE EYEWITNESS DIED; THERE ARE NO OTHER MEANS OF PROVING THE CHARGES AGAINST DEF; DISM'D W/O PREJUDICE 

An attempt to get the records for this court date was unsuccessful. The way that New Mexico keeps its court records is by allowing its court reporters to be in charge of their own personal records. If a court reporter does not keep track or passes away, or is otherwise uncontactable, the court records are lost. Though it is also possible that there was not any actual hearing this day, and that the notice was put into the court system as a formality. Anthony Schneider has not really been mentioned in the media since his death, and it appears he may not have had anyone else to advocate for him or push for the case to go back to court.

In regards to the woman that Newman supposedly killed in Taos, local papers did confirm that police had acknowledged that crime and had a suspect in custody. The woman’s name was not mentioned and a search of local papers revealed only one case that seemed to have made the news that could have possibly matched up, where a woman’s body was found dismembered in a trashcan, but she had been missing since 2007. Whether or not this suspect the police had was found guilty or not is unclear, but Andrew Newman has never been investigated for that confession.

Attempting to find more information on that crime, or even finding out who the victim was would be difficult, as New Mexico had other things happening in it’s news. The mass grave of a presumed serial killer was discovered in February of 2009 near West Mesa New Mexico. The case has since been called ‘The West Mesa Bone Collector’  and many of the crime slots in local papers were taken up with updates about that case. It dominated the news cycle in New Mexico in 2009, and a crime where the suspect was caught right away would likely be pushed to the side by many papers who were eager to talk about the more sensational Bone Collector story.

But to get back to the case at hand and the Reddit post that revealed so much about it,  the unnamed Redditor detailed his account of how the people in Josh’s circle were ignored by the police. He went on to say “Several of us went to the cops saying "Yo, Josh Who Went Missing was last seen with Andy Who's A Murderer, maybe you should check that out?" Despite a fair amount of pestering, nothing ever really came of it, and by nothing I mean that the police mostly didn't even return our calls, and once accidentally canceled the bulletin on Josh because "He's alive and well and living in the next town over!" (he wasn't)”

He then went on to describe the circumstances in which Josh was found, and said that he could initially understand an accidental death ruling “Except for the fact that in addition to Josh having last been seen with Andy-immediately-before-his-stabbing-spree, people called in to report having heard rumors that Andy was bragging about having "put Josh in a hole."

The Pikes Peak courier, the paper that had the most thorough coverage of this case, said that there were “long-circulating rumors of a man who bragged he killed Maddux.”

The Redditor then went on to explain how ludicrous they found the coroner's explanation, and said “This is just my opinion, but I don't care who you are: you don't try to climb headfirst into a chimney via a hole rusted through a metal grate with your dick hanging out.”

They went into the coroner's findings a bit more, then said “Look, I get that they didn't find enough evidence to arrest Andy or anyone else. But these motherfuckers went ahead and demolished the cabin despite all this. Josh's body was cremated. As far as I can tell, nobody even bothered to call Andy to ask if he knew anything. (By the way, from what I hear, Andy's still out and about doing his thing when he's not in the mental hospital). It's not that I want somebody to blame; I'm not trying to throw a tantrum because gimme answers. All I'm saying is: I wish they had done some police shit. Open an investigation. Try to track down some leads. Interview some of the folks who've been calling in tips for the last seven years. Maybe check for some semen or something. I don't know. Don't just say "accidental", dust off your hands, and call it a day.”

One Redditor responded to this post asking if Andy was still out there, and the poster said “[Woodland Park PD] told me in 2012 that the NM murder charges against Andy were dropped in part due to the bar fight and in part due to his "diminished mental capacity", and that he was often in [Woodland Park] when not in the mental hospital. A friend who is semi-in-touch with one of Andy's siblings told me Andy is in a mental hospital in NM at the moment. I don't know the details about whether/when/under what circumstances he's allowed to leave. A part of me would like to get in touch with him, if only to ask "Yo man, so did you kill Josh or...?" But if he's as crazy as suggested above, I don't know that I'd believe his answer either way, and it might just end up fucking with my head. Also it's kind of scary and I'm a pussy. Just working on figuring out how to contact him for now, guess I'll cross the other bridge when I come to it. Addendum: For the record, my thesis isn't that Andy killed Josh. Do I suspect that? Sure. But I'm also open to other possibilities. My thesis is that the circumstances surrounding Josh's death warrant a much more thorough investigation than the one that seems to me to have taken place.”

The anonymous Redditor has never posted any updates on if they tried to contact Andrew Newman. Though his statements were quoted in numerous podcasts and true crime articles, his post did not spur any more interest in the case by mainstream media outlets.

After the murder charges against him were dismissed Andrew Newman continued to get in trouble with the law in various states. On April 27th of 2017, he was arrested in New Jersey on charges of contempt. In December of 2018, he was arrested in Texas when Police found out he’d skipped out on a burglary warrant in Florida. While he was serving time he assaulted three officers on March 5th of 2019. After that, the paper trail stops, but evidently whatever mental health help he’d gotten back in 2011 did not help, or was not effective enough.

Josh’s family has never commented on whether or not they believe the rumors that Josh may have been murdered. In her last public interview in 2015, Kate told the Denver Post that "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. It’s been very awful. It's a nightmare that I wouldn't wish on anyone."

On October 17th  of 2015 at 11 am Josh’s family was finally able to hold a memorial service for him at the Woodland Park Community Church. The papers that were covering Josh’s case did not print anything about the service, possibly to give the family a break from the spotlight.

As far as the mystery of Josh’s death goes, Al Born told the Pikes peak Courier that "I know it's not a natural death and I'm confident it's not suicide. My other options are an accidental death, homicide, and undetermined cause of death. It is frustrating we can't pin it down."

Although Born had spoken openly with the media and seems frustrated with not finding answers, it is a bit odd that he is not willing to consider either undetermined or homicide. Both of these options would allow police to come back into the investigation. But the fact that he ruled it accidental, actually means that from the moment he made that ruling, law enforcement is not allowed to get involved because it is under the sole jurisdiction of the coroner's office. Commander James Holloran was the only member of the Woodland Park police to speak to the media and he said simply that he was not allowed to get involved. “Because of the way he ruled it, it's his case and not ours."

The coroner's unwillingness to investigate or to let others investigate is certainly strange, but if the police were desperate to solve the case they likely could have worked with him more or spoken with the media. Unfortunately in real life, when a case hits a dead end or only circumstantial evidence is available, that’s often the end of the investigation. Other, newer cases get prioritized, and old ones get forgotten.

Likewise, with Andrew Newman’s many arrests and releases, this is something that is fairly common in the American justice system. If someone is currently incarcerated or in a mental hospital for another crime or in another state, oftentimes any separate charges in other states are not pursued. Police don’t often wait around for months or years to investigate a suspect if they are doing time for something else.

What really happened to Josh may never be solved. Andrew Newman is certainly suspicious, and the fact that he bragged about “putting Josh in a hole” long before his body was found seems damning. But that exact quote is only found on the Redditor’s post and was not found in any newspapers, though they did discuss a suspect bragging about killing him. To this day, there is no record of law enforcement or the coroner’s office ever trying to speak with Andrew Newman about the case.

There is also always the possibility that Josh was on drugs as that could not be conclusively ruled out. Families do not always know what their teenagers are getting up to, and people have done far stranger things than climb down a chimney half naked while under the influence of hard drugs.

It’s also possible that Josh, for some reason became locked in the cabin and his strange behavior was due to symptoms of hypothermia. Paradoxical undressing is the well-documented phenomenon of people taking off their clothes when they hit the end stages of hypothermia because they begin to feel very warm. Terminal burrowing is another symptom where those near death from hypothermia seek out small covered spaces to hide. Perhaps Josh was delirious from hypothermia and went into the chimney to hide, and the breakfast bar was moved later by someone who did not notice Josh’s corpse.

For answers to ever be found though, the investigation would need to be reopened. Al Born would need to let law enforcement back on the case, and they would have to have the resources and motivation to try and solve it. And until that happens, the mystery of what really happened to Joshua Maddux will remain; Unresolved.

Episode Information

Episode Information

Research & writing by Bethany Branson

Hosting & production by Micheal Whelan

Published on September 10th, 2022

Music Credits

Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music

Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves