Carter Roy

I mean, you can say you would never stoop to cannibalism, but have you ever been in a situation like that?

It's not like they were killing each other for meat.

Every death was either natural or an accident, minus Belle, but that was self-defense, so Alfred wouldn't be at fault for that either.

Even the story about Belle losing it makes total sense.

Those kind of elements can drive anyone mad.

No, really.

We have covered cases on the show in which extreme isolation and cold weather may have induced violence, whether it's on a base in Antarctica, the frozen mountain of Aconcagua, or Dyatlov Pass.

Alfred's new story also puts into perspective his behavior when he returned from the wild, why he wanted to drink to forget, why he was too ashamed to tell people what really happened.

Sure, it's weird that he took money from the dead, but is it any worse than eating them?

It's not like they were going to put it to use.

After Alfred's confession,

A search party goes out to look for the deceased remains, but they don't have any luck.

So, Alfred's latest version of events becomes the official story for almost a whole year.

Until a traveling illustrator working for Harper's Weekly stumbles upon what looks like a massacre.

he finds the decomposing remains of the five missing prospectors all in one spot.

Four have fractured skulls, one is headless.

All show signs of butchering, and a forensic exam later suggests some may have been murdered in their sleep.

The evidence very clearly contradicts Alfred's accounts, both of them.

Even if all of the injuries happened after the men died, Alfred said their bodies were left scattered miles apart from one another, which just isn't true.

So, the question becomes, why lie?