Detective Raymond Stark of the Chicago PD was in Colorado on vacation with his brother Adam and acquaintance Dr. Hazel Rathbone. The three were stranded in Miner's Folly, along with a number of other travelers, by a snowstorm and subsequent avalanche. They checked into the town's only hotel, the Clearwater Hotel (contact information attached).
     At approximately 9:30 PM on the evening of January 10, Stark notified the front desk of an unusual banging noise coming from the room next door (room 210). A hotel employee (first name Anna) discovered a large amount of blood in the room and a broken window. Det. Stark was alerted by her screams and hurried to investigate. Observing standard crime scene etiquette, he was careful to make sure no one else entered the room before proper law enforcement authorities arrived. The banging noise was coming from the window, which had been broken outward. Det. Stark found a chair in the corner near the window, slightly broken, with rope on it. It appeared that someone may have been tied in the chair and tortured; most of the blood was in about a three-foot radius of this chair. The rest of the room, aside from splattered blood, was undisturbed. Det. Stark estimates approximately 1-3 hours had passed since the blood was spilled.
     Due to the storm and the remote mountain location, neither land phone lines nor cells were working. While waiting for the sheriff to be fetched from town by a hotel employee, Det. Stark went outside to look for any tracks before they could be obliterated by the snow. He did not find any tracks, but on the fence separating the hotel from a deep ravine on the other side, he found a small amount of blood. He also found large shards of broken glass from the window.
     When Sheriff Marcus Wilheim and Deputy Sheriff Sean Dermont arrived on the scene, Det. Stark introduced himself and briefed them on what he had found, and they informed him the name of the occupant of the room was a Damien Carson. Det. Stark left them to their investigation and returned to his room for the night.
     On the morning of Jan. 11 at approximately 10:00 AM, Det. Stark and others in the hotel restaurant became aware of a disturbance in one wing of the hotel. Upon investigating, Det. Stark found an extremely distressed hotel employee by the name of Molly, who others were attempting to calm down. Det. Stark identified himself to the manager, who pointed out the room Molly had just come from (101). The inside of the room showed signs of extreme violence: the window was broken inward and the occupant, a Dr. Cynthia Carmichael, had been dismembered and also apparently chewed.
     Again the sheriff was summoned, and Det. Stark went outside to look for tracks. The snow had stopped sometime in the night. Det. Stark found large, unidentifiable animal tracks in the snow behind the hotel, running along the fence separating the hotel from the ravine. The tracks did not meander, but led directly to the room of the victim and it appeared that the creature had milled about outside the window before breaking through. The tracks then retreated in the same direction. When the Sheriff arrived, Det. Stark showed him the tracks and speculated possibly a bear, though the sheriff said they were too long to be those of a bear. Regardless, he acknowledged that it was very unusual for an animal to break through a window to attack. Det. Stark left Sheriff Wilheim to his investigation of the crime scene (is it a crime scene if it's an animal attack?), wishing for a medical examiner and a team of forensics experts.
     Still snowbound (the sheriff had informed them of the avalanche in the pass), they spent the rest of the day touring the small town and getting to know the other snowbound guests. As a precaution, the hotel employees moved as many of their guests as possible to second-floor rooms.

     In the early morning of Jan. 12 (approximately 2:00 AM) Det. Stark and his brother Adam were awakened by a noise outside their window. Looking out, Adam reported seeing an unnaturally large wolf on the ground below. It looked as if it had just tried to jump through the window but had missed. When Adam appeared at the window, it retreated into the darkness.
     The night manager may have alerted the sheriff over the CB radio he had left at the hotel, but more likely he left it until morning, or else did not fully believe the eye-witness report of a horse-sized wolf. However, the remaining guests on the first floor were moved to the second floor, some guests doubling up in rooms.
     In the morning (after it was light), Det. Stark and his brother went outside to investigate the tracks. They found a large indentation in the snow that they speculated was from the beast landing in the snow after its failed jump, and a smudge on the wall right below their window, including a bit of fur. The same large tracks were visible, though this side of the hotel was not adjacent to the ravine. The tracks came and went in the direction of the ravine, same as they had the previous morning.
     Det. Stark attempted to contact the Sheriff or his deputy on the CB but got no answer. Through a combination of concern and a desire to get out of that hotel, Det. Stark and his brother decided to drive into town to visit the shieriff in person. They were accompanied by their friend Dr. Hazel Rathbone and acquaintance and fellow stranded traveler Katherine Beacon.
     Upon arrival at the sheriff's station they found the front window broken in. Det. Stark and Ms. Beacon, who identified herself as an agent with the Federal IIS (or something akin; she wouldn't identify her specific title or department), went to investigate while the two civilians remained outside. They found the Sheriff and Deputy dead inside, victims of another apparent wolf attack. The office was otherwise undisturbed. Det. Stark estimated that the men had been dead approximately six hours. Large, clawed tracks, like the ones outside the hotel, led to and away from the office.
     Det. Stark located a radio in the office and was able to contact authorities in Aspen (he spoke with a Det. Williams of the 1st Precinct). Due to the avalanche in the pass, however, no help would be immediately forthcoming. Det. Stark and Ms. Beacon, at the suggestion of Aspen police, took weapons from the sheriff's stockpile. The Aspen authorities said they'd see what they could do, and wanted Det. Stark to call them back in an hour.
     In that time, Det. Stark located the name and address of the remaining deputy in town, Chad Kinnard, and drove to his home to notify him of the situation. Deputy Kinnard returned to the sheriff's office with Stark and the two investigated the scene. From the patterns of broken glass and glass fragments found in Deputy Dermont's clothes, skin and hair, they speculated that Dermont may have been standing outside when the wolf attacked and that he was knocked backward through the window. He was evidently taken by surprise. The body of Sheriff Wilheim was found in the back hallway of the office. He evidently had some warning, because he had drawn his pistol. Empty casings in the hall near his body suggested that he had fired three times. Det. Stark was able to locate two bullet holes in the walls.
     Owing to the lack of medical facilities in Miner's Folly, the two bodies were moved into one of the jail cells to protect them from further depredations until more suitable arrangements could be made. Deputy Kinnard called the Aspen police back and Det. Stark went outside to search the grounds. The tracks led across the road and disappeared into the woods. There was no evidence that the beast had been injured.
     Deputy Kinnard said he would assemble a group of locals to try and track the creature. Det. Stark and company spent the rest of the day at the local tavern or attempting to rest at the hotel.
     Det. Stark, his brother, Dr. Rathbone and Ms. Beacon had dinner at the tavern approximately 6:30 PM. Ms. Beacon and Dr. Rathbone left sometime around 7:30 to speak to a local resident about possible lodging for the night. A few minutes after leaving, Ms. Beacon called the Stark brothers on their radio, which they had brought to keep track of each other on the ski slopes; Adam had given one to Ms. Beacon in case of emergency. Ms. Beacon reported two large wolves fighting in the street outside the village newspaper office.
     Det. Stark and his brother quickly drove to the scene and observed two dark wolflike shapes struggling with each other. Det. Stark shot at the larger of the two, which then ran away. Left in the street was the body of a man, his throat torn open. He was identified as Mr. Reginald Thompson, another guest of the hotel. Det. Stark summoned Deputy Kinnard on the radio to report the incident.
     In light of the situation, Deputy Kinnard allowed the four refugees to spend the night at his house.

     Sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 AM of January 13, the party sleeping in the living room was woken by a knock at the front window. Outside was Ian Maguire, a guest from the hotel whom the party had met previously. He was asking for help. Adam Stark stepped outside to talk to him, whereupon the party were all taken hostage by five armed men. Deputy Kinnard heard the commotion and came downstairs to investigate, and was also taken hostage. Mr. Maguire's complacency in this setup is uncertain. When he appeared at the window he said "Help me." He did not appear to be armed and may have been used as bait to lure the others outside. The party did not see him again after this incident.
     The five—Det. Stark and his brother, Dr. Rathbone, Ms. Beacon, and Deputy Kinnard—were handcuffed and thrown in the back of a van. They were taken outside of town, along a road leading to the Delaney Mining facilities, and unloaded in a clearing in the woods just off the road.
     A sixth man, whom the five goons referred to as their boss, met them all in the clearing. As it was still quite early in the morning, it was too dark to see his features clearly, other than that he was tall and thin.
     Detective Stark believes the five hostages probably would have been murdered, execution-style, there in the clearing. They were saved by two unexpected arrivals. As the hostages were being herded into the clearing, the group became aware of chanting and singing. A group of Native Americans was coming along the road in a procession, beating a hand drum. (It apparently was some kind of traditional ceremony.) Detective Stark does not believe they were armed, but their unexpected arrival unsettled the goons, who obviously did not want an audience. Then suddenly a large wolf leaped out of the forest, attacking the goon closest to the edge of the clearing. When a second ran to assist him, the wolf took him down as well, grabbing his throat. The Native Americans who happened on the scene attempted to assist the hostages. The brothers Stark attempted to prevent two of the guards from shooting the Native Americans, by body-checking them.
     In the end, two of the guards were killed by the wolf. It then dragged one of its victims off into the woods and disappeared. One guard was knocked unconscious, and two fled in their van. It is not clear what happened to their "boss." Most likely he fled with the other two goons.
     One of the Native American men, who identified himself only as "Jay," found the keys to the handcuffs and released the hostages. His companions helped carry the unconscious guard back into town, where they delivered him to the sheriff's station. They then left the scene without leaving any contact information or identification. There were five or six of them, all male; Det. Stark estimates them all to be over 70.
     At the sheriff's station, the hostages were treated for minor cuts and bruises and shock. The unconscious goon was placed in a cell and was just beginning to wake up when county and state authorities finally arrived in town to take control of the situation. The Stark brothers and Dr. Rathbone left the town approximately three hours later, after giving their statements, and returned to Dr. Rathbone's residence in Boulder.

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