On a last-minute camping trip over Labor Day weekend in 1974, the Cowden family vanished from the Siskiyou Mountains near Copper, Oregon. White Caucasian Belinda June Cowden, age 22, her husband Richard, 28, and their two young children, David, 5, and Melissa, 5 months, had set up their camp near Carberry Creek, a familiar spot for the family. On the morning of September 1, 1974, Richard and David walked to the nearby Copper General Store to buy milk.
This was the last time any member of the family was seen alive. That evening, they failed to arrive for dinner at the home of Belinda's mother, who lived just a mile from the campground. Becoming worried, she went to their campsite and found it eerily abandoned. Their truck, Belinda's purse, Richard's wallet, and the half-full container of milk were all there, but the family was gone.
The discovery of the deserted campsite launched one of the largest search efforts in Oregon's history. Law enforcement, the National Guard, and numerous volunteers scoured the rugged terrain for months, but found no trace of the missing family. Their pet Basset Hound, Droopy, who had also been on the trip, was found the next morning at the door of the general store. The mystery of their disappearance deepened over the next seven months, leaving their family and the community in anguish, with no clues as to what had happened to them.
In April 1975, the grim answer was found. Two gold prospectors discovered human remains in a remote, wooded area about seven miles from the Cowdens' campsite. Authorities found Richard's body tied to a tree. A short distance away, concealed within a small cave, were the bodies of Belinda and her two children. Autopsies would later reveal that Belinda and her son David had died from. 22 caliber gunshot wounds. Their five-month-old daughter, Melissa, had died from severe head trauma. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, a definitive cause of death could not be determined for Richard.
The investigation into the murders pointed towards a prime suspect, a convicted killer named Dwain Lee Little, who had been paroled just three months before the Cowdens disappeared. Little had been in the area over the Labor Day weekend. An inmate who later shared a cell with Little claimed he confessed to the murders. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence, which included Little's girlfriend seeing him with a. 22 caliber gun around that time, he has never been charged in connection with the Cowden family murders. Little was later sent back to prison for other violent crimes, including the attempted murder of another woman. The haunting case of who killed Belinda June Cowden and her family remains officially unsolved.
