On Sunday, August 28, 2017, 33-year-old hiker Rodney Letterman set out with a friend to hike the Butterfield Trail in the Ozark Mountains...and he has never been heard from again.
Beginning in Devil’s Den State Park just outside Winslow the Butterfield Trail is a 14.9-mile loop that takes hikers through creeks, up high ridges, and past waterfalls and caves. Though several miles of it are located within the state park’s boundaries, the majority of the trail loops through part of the rugged Ozark National Forest.
In stark contrast to the flat lands of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where Letterman lived, the Ozark region is full of rolling hills, rocky crags, and deep hollows. The two friends had camped in the park the night before, after making the three hour drive from Bartlesville.
According to his wife Stacia, Rodney Letterman suffered from high blood pressure, needing daily medication, and told her he hadn’t been feeling well before leaving on the trip.
Letterman and his friend had only gotten about a mile from their vehicle before he sat down to rest, and sources differ on whether he just reported feeling unwell or if he was suffering a medical emergency.
His friend hiked back to the car to retrieve Rodney’s blood pressure medication, but when he returned he had disappeared. Letterman was carrying 1.5 liters of water but no backpack or camping supplies. A source at the parks department said he did not have a lot of hiking experience.
Search and rescue teams—on horseback, ATVs, on foot and with drones—canvased nearly 4,000 acres in and around the park over the following week.
Letterman’s cell phone, cell charger, and a flashlight were discovered along the way; some sources note that the cell phone was found at a primitive campsite, of which there are several along the trail.
Law enforcement hasn’t released any other details as to the outcome of the search, but by September 6, 2017 the search was scaled back. The assistant superintendent of Devil’s Den, Tim Scott, said they had no reason yet to suspect Letterman was in danger. “Until we find evidence that leans to that, we’re still looking for him [alive],” Scott said.
No other traces of Rodney Letterman have been found to this day. However, there may be more than meets the eye to this seemingly innocuous hiking trip.
Devil’s Den is one of the most popular parks in the state, and essentially one big valley bordered on its east and west sides by highways. Almost 5,000 people visited the park during the Labor Day weekend of 2017 (a week after Rodney’s disappearance).
The Butterfield Trail is probably the least-trafficked area in the park. "AllTrails" rates it as difficult, with many users noting steep and rocky terrain, confusing trail intersections, and a boatload of seed ticks in the summer.
Cell service is limited to nonexistent in most areas of the park.
There seems to be suspicion that law enforcement knows more than they have said, or that there is a criminal element to this case that is leading them to withhold evidence from the public. The friend Rodney was hiking with has never been identified publicly, and Rodney’s family has not released a statement at any time.
Other than being quoted as saying Letterman told her he was exhausted and not feeling well before the trip, Stacia has been silent about her husband’s disappearance. Rodney’s Facebook page is public and up until the week before his disappearance, he posted frequently about his church, dogs, niece and wife.
He and Stacia were married in March 2017, only about five months before he went missing.
Letterman did have an arrest record, with at least one charge of possessing opiates and a parole violation in Kansas from 2016, a year before his disappearance.
There is also the issue with Letterman’s missing backpack Most sources say he had his water bottle and his phone, but no backpack. However, his “Missing” poster from Our Missing Hearts on Facebook says that Rodney and his friend had camped the night before, making it seem likely he would have had a backpack.
Also, a photo reported to be from either the day Letterman disappeared or the day before shows him wearing a large backpack, but it has not been located.
In November 2017 The Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise quoted Washington County sheriff’s deputy John Schuster, who said that “some questions have come up” during the investigation. “He has been known to disappear before,” Schuster said, though it’s not clear what he was referring to.
In an article published in September 2018, a year after Letterman’s disappearance, Lt. Bret Hagan of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said, “We have analyzed that phone and it has given us some leads, but we still have not been able to locate Letterman. At this point, we still do not know if something happened to Letterman at the park, if he got a ride out of there from another friend or if there’s any foul play. We really can’t answer that at this point. There’s not enough evidence to suggest any of that has happened.”
Hagan also said the case is “at a standstill,” and encouraged the public to contact authorities if they have credible information about Rodney Letterman’s disappearance.
Did Letterman have a medical emergency and fall into a hard-to-reach area, or become disoriented and somehow evade the searchers? Or did he leave the park of his own volition by hiking to a highway or meeting an accomplice?
Why, and who else was involved? Where is Rodney now and is he alive?
Over a year and a half after his disappearance, there are only more questions.
