Mr. Ballin

So this guy was genuinely shocked when he reached the top of the trail and saw he was not alone.

There was a woman up there.

But at first, the way his brain processed what he was seeing is he saw this woman who was lying on the ground and she appeared to be nude or partially nude.

And he thought, oh, she's sunbathing.

Like, that's what she's doing up here.

But then he's like, it's March.

It's cold.

And she's face down and she's definitely totally naked.

And then he took a few more steps forward and his brain kind of processed what he was seeing, at which point he just gasped, turned around and ran back to his car to go alert the police.

Within the hour, Captain Pete Hayward, with the Salt Lake City Sheriff's Office, drove his cruiser along a remote access road that led to Big Cottonwood Canyon.

So Hayward normally loved being in nature.

All he really did in his spare time was hunt and fish.

But right now, the scenery and remote location were actually kind of an inconvenience, because he needed to get to his destination quickly, and that was just very hard to do out here.

Hayward had just gotten a call about a woman who'd been found dead in the canyon by a worker for a utility company.

And while a few responders were actually already there securing the scene, Hayward knew they wouldn't be able to really do anything until he got there.

Because when he worked a murder case, every single detail had to go through him.

A few minutes later, Hayward saw some police cars up ahead on the side of the road, and also a deputy waiting by a trailhead.

And so he pulled over, got out, and then followed the deputy up a steep trail for about 300 yards.

And he was pretty out of breath by the time he saw a few other crime scene techs and officers gathered around a bush, where underneath the bush there was a body of a naked woman lying face down on the ground.

Hayward walked over and crouched down to examine the body, and right away he could see at least three bullet wounds in the woman's back.