FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – In a forest clearing outside Flagstaff, Arizona, Sasha Krause was found cold and stiff, with a bullet wound to the back of her head.
She was face down beneath brush, wearing a gray dress, white coat and hiking shoes. Her hair was pinned in a bun and her hands bound by duct tape.
Her underwear was missing. The 27-year-old Sunday school teacher had disappeared more than a month earlier from a Mennonite community in New Mexico more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) away.
Authorities are still trying to determine how her body ended up steps away from a makeshift camp off a lonely two-lane road that cuts through the canyons and groves of towering pine trees.