In the late summer of 1974, a young White boy named David James Phillips, aged five, embarked on what was meant to be a pleasant Labor Day weekend camping trip. He was with his mother, Belinda Cowden, his stepfather, Richard Cowden, and his five-month-old half-sister, Melissa Cowden. The family made a last-minute decision to visit a familiar spot in the Siskiyou Mountains near Copper, Oregon, a place where they had camped before.
They arrived on August 30th, setting up their camp near Carberry Creek. On the morning of September 1st, David and his stepfather, Richard, walked to the nearby Copper General Store to buy a carton of milk. This ordinary errand would be the last time any member of the family was seen alive.
Later that evening, when the family failed to arrive for a planned dinner at Belinda's mother's house just a mile from the campground, concern began to grow. A visit to their campsite revealed an unsettling scene of abandonment. Their pickup truck was parked nearby, and all of their belongings, including Richard's wallet and Belinda's purse, were left behind as if they intended to return at any moment. The family, along with their Basset Hound, Droopy, had vanished without a trace, sparking one of the most extensive search efforts in Oregon's history. The search involved state and local police, the National Guard, and numerous volunteers, but for months, it yielded no clues as to their whereabouts.
The grim discovery was made seven months later, in April 1975, by two gold prospectors about seven miles from the family's campsite. They found the body of Richard Cowden tied to a tree. Nearby, within a cave that had been partially sealed with rocks, were the remains of Belinda, David, and baby Melissa. Autopsies revealed that David and his mother had both been killed by. 22 caliber gunshot wounds. His infant sister had died from severe head trauma. The cause of Richard Cowden's death could not be determined due to the condition of his remains.
Despite an intensive investigation, no arrests have ever been made in the murders of David Phillips and his family. However, law enforcement has long considered a man named Dwain Lee Little to be the primary suspect. Little was a convicted murderer who had been paroled from prison just three months before the family disappeared. He had a history of violent crimes, including the rape and murder of a teenage girl in 1964. Circumstantial evidence placed Little in the Copper area during the same Labor Day weekend. An inmate who once shared a cell with Little later claimed that he had confessed to the murders. Despite this and other suspicious information, including his girlfriend reporting that he owned a. 22 caliber gun around that time, Little was never charged in connection with the Cowden family murders. The case officially remains unsolved, a haunting mystery that has lingered for decades.
