Marty James Shook was 21 when he left his mother’s home in Sparks, Nevada, on June 12, 1982, carrying a backpack and bedroll and intending to travel to Colorado for work. He was an experienced hitchhiker who followed a particular route, but his movements after leaving Nevada are unclear. On June 14 his nude body was found in the willows beside Daniels Creek on Highway 40 near Heber City, Utah, about 30 feet from the road. He was wearing only socks and lay on his back; the medical examiner found a single gunshot wound to the back of the head from a .38 caliber weapon and postmortem castration. His backpack and clothes were never recovered.

Shook’s identity wasn’t confirmed until October 1983. In 1989 ballistics linked the .38 used to kill him to the 1981 murder of hitchhiker Wayne Leigh Rifendifer in Pennsylvania, prompting investigators to consider a traveling serial offender such as a truck driver or traveling salesman. A witness reported a young blond woman hitchhiker in the area who was treated as a potential suspect but was never identified. No arrests have been announced in Shook’s case.

Did anyone know Marty’s travel plans or remember seeing him or the blond hitchhiker along that route in June 1982?