Human remains should not be found 40 feet above the ground, woven into a structure of branches and mud. They do not belong in the sky. And their presence there is evidence of a chain of events as improbable as it is tragic.
This is the story of how one man’s disappearance became one of the strangest criminal mysteries in North Carolina history, where a river, trees, and birds became silent witnesses and keepers of a violent crime’s secret. It is a tale that began not at the top of a tree but on the quiet, dark waters of a national forest where a single decision made in anger set in motion a mechanism that nature completed in the most unpredictable way, turning a bird’s nest into a sarcophagus.
On February 28, 2011, a missing person report was filed with emergency services in Craven County, North Carolina, for 29-year-old David Scott Howell. A resident of Newport, Howell was reported missing while kayaking on Catfish Lake in the Croatan National Forest. The report came from his companion, Christopher Davis McCutchen, who claimed their kayaks had capsized and he was unable to find Howell after reaching the shore.
This event marked the start of a large-scale search and rescue operation that came up empty. After days and weeks of searching, the investigation, initially classified as an accident, reached a dead end, leaving behind only unanswered questions and an abandoned kayak. This story could have remained one of many unsolved wilderness tragedies had it not been for a chance discovery made eight months later, which would turn the case of the missing kayaker into a murder investigation.
David Scott Howell was a North Carolina native who lived in Newport with his mother and stepfather. Friends and family described him as an outdoors enthusiast who was well acquainted with the local waterways and forests, often spending his time hiking, fishing, and kayaking. While he didn’t have a steady job, he occasionally took on construction contracts and had no documented conflicts with the law or known enemies.
On that fateful Monday, February 28, 2011, Howell and his long-time friend, Christopher McCutchen, set out on a recreational kayaking trip to Catfish Lake. The Croatan National Forest, where the lake is situated, is a vast, 60,000-acre expanse of pine forests, swamps, and lakes. Catfish Lake, one of its largest lakes, is densely covered with cypress trees and other swamp vegetation, making some areas difficult to access.
On the morning of their trip, the weather was cool and cloudy, with air temperatures around 10° C. The water was significantly colder, making prolonged exposure a serious risk for hypothermia. They arrived at the Pine Cliff Recreation Area in the early afternoon, each in a single kayak—Howell’s was blue, and McCutchen’s was red or orange. Details on whether they wore life jackets remain inconsistent in the initial report.
The last confirmed contact with David Howell was a brief phone call he made to his mother around 9:30 a.m., telling her about his plans for the day. He showed no signs of concern or disagreement with his friend. After the call, they launched their kayaks and paddled away from shore into the vast, deserted expanse of water, surrounded by dense forest. Their movements for the next several hours were known only to one person: Christopher McCutchen. His version of events, which would form the basis of the initial missing person report, contained inconsistencies from the outset, which would later attract the attention of investigators.
At approximately 7:00 p.m. on February 28, Christopher McCutchen contacted emergency services, reporting that he and his friend David Howell had been involved in a boating accident. He said he was on land, but his friend was missing. Officers from the Craven County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission were immediately dispatched to the boat launch area at Pine Cliff. They found Christopher McCutchen alone, looking wet, tired, and depressed. His kayak was nearby, but David Howell’s was nowhere to be seen.
McCutchen gave his first official statement at the scene, claiming that around 2:30 p.m., a sudden gust of wind had capsized Howell’s kayak and then his own. He stated that he saw Howell trying to stay afloat next to his overturned blue kayak but quickly lost sight of him in the wind and waves. He explained his nearly five-hour delay in reporting the incident by saying he was disoriented, exhausted, and suffering from hypothermia, wandering through the woods for several hours before finding his way back to his car and calling for help.
Based on McCutchen’s testimony, a full-scale search and rescue operation was immediately launched. Boats with searchlights and sonar scanned the bottom of the lake, while ground teams combed the shoreline. A Coast Guard helicopter equipped with a thermal imaging camera also assisted. Despite these extensive efforts, no trace of the 29-year-old was found.
At dawn the next day, the search resumed with additional units, including divers, who faced the difficult challenge of working in the lake’s murky, dark waters. Around 1:00 p.m., the first and only significant clue was discovered: David Howell’s blue kayak, found in a small backwater on the opposite side of the lake, about a mile and a half from the location McCutchen had indicated. The kayak was half-submerged and stuck in thick reeds, with a paddle floating nearby. An inspection revealed no visible damage. This discovery, however, did not match McCutchen’s account, raising the first red flags.
The search continued for seven days, but David Howell’s body was never found. On March 7, 2011, the active search and rescue operation was officially terminated. The case was reclassified as a missing person investigation, and the focus shifted to the only person who had been with him that day: Christopher McCutchen.
With the hope of finding Howell alive gone, the investigation was transferred to the Craven County Sheriff’s Office Detective Division. Investigators began to thoroughly scrutinize McCutchen’s testimony, which was no longer accepted as the account of a survivor but was now seen as potentially filled with inconsistencies and lies. One of the key points that aroused suspicion was the five-hour delay in reporting the incident. McCutchen’s explanation seemed unconvincing, especially to investigators familiar with the topography of the Croatan National Forest. They determined that an experienced outdoorsman like McCutchen could have reached a road or a known landmark in much less time. A medical examination also found no severe signs of hypothermia consistent with his story of prolonged exposure to icy water.
The second significant discrepancy was the location of Howell’s kayak. Experts from the Wildlife Resources Commission analyzed wind and current data for February 28, 2011, and concluded that it was extremely unlikely for an empty kayak to drift from the point McCutchen had indicated to where it was found. This suggested the kayak had either been moved or that McCutchen had lied about the accident’s location.
Despite the suspicions, the investigation reached a dead end. Forensic analysis of the kayaks and personal belongings yielded no physical evidence of a struggle or foul play. While detectives uncovered a potential motive—several friends reported an unresolved conflict between Howell and McCutchen over a debt or a personal dispute—the case lacked the most fundamental piece of evidence: David Howell’s body. Without a body, it was virtually impossible to prove murder, leaving Christopher McCutchen free, albeit under a cloud of suspicion.
Spring turned to summer, and the case went cold. Eight months passed, and public interest faded. The mystery of Catfish Lake seemed to be safely buried in its dark waters. But the answer did not come from the lake or from a confession. It came from the air, from a place so unexpected that none of the search theories had considered it.
On October 12, 2011, a group of biologists working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was conducting a routine survey of great blue heron colonies in the Croatan National Forest. Working a few miles southeast of Catfish Lake, one ornithologist, using powerful binoculars, noticed a foreign object in a large, old nest about 40 feet high in a swamp cypress tree. The object was a sports sneaker, clearly different from the usual branches, moss, and mud. Upon closer inspection, the biologist noticed other foreign elements: fragments of decayed fabric and what appeared to be bones.
Realizing the potential significance, the team leader contacted the authorities, and a message was relayed to the Craven County Sheriff’s Office: “Presumed human remains found in a heron’s nest at high altitude.” An investigation team was immediately sent to the site. Retrieving the remains proved technically challenging due to the swampy terrain. A specialized rescue team had to be called in to use climbing gear to access the nest. Inside, they found fragments of a human skeleton, scattered and partially broken. Along with the sneaker, they also found remnants of denim fabric and several bone fragments, including part of a skull. The collected items were sent to the North Carolina State Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis and identification.
Forensic anthropologists quickly confirmed the bones belonged to an adult male. The key piece of evidence was the sneaker, which matched the brand, model, and size of the shoes David Howell was last seen wearing. Final confirmation came a few days later from a dental examination. A comparison of dental X-rays provided by Howell’s dentist with the jawbone found in the nest left no doubt: the remains belonged to David Scott Howell.
With the body found, the investigation moved from a missing person case to a murder inquiry. The final piece of the puzzle came from the forensic anthropology lab. Upon careful examination of the reconstructed skull fragments, experts discovered several linear fractures. The nature and location of these injuries were inconsistent with an accidental drowning or impact with an underwater object. Analysis revealed the fractures were inflicted during life by a blunt, elongated, and relatively narrow object—exactly matching the shape and size of a standard kayak paddle. The conclusion was unequivocal: David Scott Howell had not died in an accident. He was killed by blows to the head.
Armed with this irrefutable evidence, investigators reconstructed the events of February 28, 2011. While on the lake, the conflict between Howell and McCutchen escalated. McCutchen, in a fit of rage, used his paddle as a weapon, striking Howell and causing his death. He then dumped the body, likely in a stream or channel leading from the lake, and staged the accident. The five-hour delay was now explained as the time it took McCutchen to conceal the evidence and fabricate his story.
One bizarre question remained: how did the body end up in a tree? To answer it, investigators enlisted the help of hydrologists and experts on the Croatan National Forest ecosystem. They discovered that in March, shortly after Howell’s disappearance, the region experienced prolonged, heavy rainfall, leading to significant flooding. The water level in rivers and streams rose several meters. The strong current picked up Howell’s body and carried it through the flooded forest until it became lodged in the dense branches of an old cypress tree as the floodwaters receded. In the following months, nature completed the process. A colony of great blue herons, oblivious to the human remains, returned to their nesting place and instinctively wove fragments of clothing and bones into the structure of their new home.
On November 3, 2011, with the cause of death confirmed and a complete theory of the crime, the Craven County Sheriff’s Office arrested Christopher Davis McCutchen. He was charged with second-degree murder. During the trial in 2014, the prosecution presented a compelling case: McCutchen’s lies and inconsistencies, the motive, the forensic evidence of fatal blows to the head, and the expert testimony explaining the incredible natural events that led to the discovery of the body. The defense was unable to refute the physical evidence. The jury found Christopher Davis McCutchen guilty of the murder of David Scott Howell, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
And so ended this story, in which a brutal crime was solved not by human investigation alone but by a series of strange coincidences and natural processes. The killer hid his victim in the water, but the river and a subsequent flood carried him up to the sky, where a colony of birds, without knowing it, preserved the evidence until an ornithologist’s gaze discovered what neither rescuers nor divers could find.