45| Missing at Newfound Gap: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Midwest has a way of bringing cloud cover just often enough throughout the winter  to keep you doused in a blanket of melancholy that you can’t seem to take off until the sun shines upon your face. 

And so on a sunny spring day you take advantage, throwing on your boots and grabbing some snacks, determined to hit the trails. 

And as you walk along at your own pace, you see others. Ahead of you, behind you. Smiling. Laughing. Enjoying the sun and warmth.

You look down at the trail to step over some roots and rocks, and when you look up again, those ahead of you are gone. 

It causes you to pause. The laughter that rolled from them, now silent. An eerie feeling crawls over your skin as you turn to see the man behind you. 

But instead the trail is empty. As your skin prickles and your mind reels to process what you are seeing, you suddenly realize how easy it is for the forest to swallow you whole. 

For there are men and women and children, who walk into the forest, and are never 

seen 

again. 

Welcome back to tragedy with a view I am your host Kayla and this is another free solo episode to keep you company until next week where I’ll have a cohost again. 

*because this episode is a solo episode, the podcast episode doesn’t deviate that much from the blog post. But, I would still love if you gave it a listen!

Merch pre-order is now live. There are 4 designs that you can grab, 2 t shirts and 2 crew neck sweatshirt options. Please be sure to grab those, the pre-sale ends on the 16th, which is in a week and I am not going to keep stock in these so you won’t be able to get them again for the foreseeable future.

I also want to mention that I’ve got a little bit of a new format for exclusive episodes because you can now subscribe and get that additional content through Patreon, Apple and Spotify now. And because of that, I am going to start rolling out the exclusive episodes in the same format as the normal episodes so they’ll just be the first Wednesday of every month. 

Patreon members do get early releases on all of the episodes, but to keep with the same pay scale as much as I can for around four dollars a month through Patreon, Apple and Spotify subscriptions you’ll be getting the upcoming exclusive content. Because I’m rolling them out with the normal episodes they do have a normal episode number so if you are not listening on one of those platforms, you might see that a number episode is missing and that’s why it’s because it is a paid feature and whatever platform you’re listening on doesn’t support that payment. I don’t think that’s gonna be too much of a problem because 98% of my listener are already on Patreon on Spotify or Apple so you will be seeing those numbers correctly it’s just if you’re not paying for the content you’re not gonna be able to listen to it.

One dollar Patreon members you still get the episodes a day early and you’re also going to maintain access to the first for exclusive episodes but going forward you won’t have access to the future exclusive content. 

Now with that out-of-the-way

On the border between North Carolina and Tennessee lies a mountain range that layers ridge on ridge with beauty and serenity. 

The great Smoky Mountains national Park is Home to a huge population of plant and animals. The park was established in June of 1934 and aims to preserve the southern Appalachian history. This park is the number one most visited park in the United States. 

Inside the park, there is a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is a part of the Appalachian mountain chain, and this also includes some of the highest peaks on the eastern North American continent.

These peaks include kuwohi, which just had its name reestablished, Mount guyot, and Mount Leconte. All of the mountains are over 6,500 feet in elevation or 1,980 meters. 

Along with the mountain range, part of the Appalachian Trail runs through the park, nearly right down the middle, as through hikers will make their way from Georgia to Maine or vice versa Maine to Georgia. Nearly 3,000 people attempt to thru hike each year, with only a ¼ completed the distance. But, nearly 3 million people each year step onto the Appalachian trail to hike for some distance. 

The park is known for being huge and dense, and having a large variety of activities for the entire family to enjoy. From hiking to Whitewater rafting climbing to the peaks of the mountains or scaling the rock walls, horseback riding and camping. There is something here for everyone.

Newfound gap is a mountain pass that is located almost in the center of the park, and in fact, the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina actually crosses this gap at newfound gap Road.

The pass is roughly 5048 feet or 1539 m in elevation and while there are multiple hiking trails that will lead you to this point and over the pass, the Appalachian Trail is another option.

Partially because of all of the options for activities that people have in the park, and partially because of the Appalachian Trail allowing through hikers access, the number of visitors in this park is astronomical.  in 2020 it had over 14 million visitors, and that number hasn’t really changed all that much, with just shy of 14 million visitors coming through the gates in 2023.

But of course, with this many visitors it is impossible to ignore the fact that you will also have more frequent cases of death and disappearances. in actuality, search and rescue averages 103 activities per year. 

While I couldn’t find an exact number, it appears that there are five cases of people who have gone missing in the smoky mountains and never seen again. However, the following case was not on that list so I’m not sure that it is up-to-date or accurate. 

Derek Lueking was 23 years old and known to be dependable, hard-working, and had great time management skills.

Derek had a huge heart and went overseas for mission trips multiple times while he worked his way to receiving his degree from the Johnson University, which was formally known as Johnson bible college.

From here, Derek began working as an orderly at peninsula behavioral health. For those who don’t know. orderlies assist nurses in medical settings and also help to comfort patients. From everything that I’ve seen about this specific location the job is extremely hard because you are dealing with behavioral issues, which means that the job is extremely stressful and often takes a toll on the people working there.

Ryan Moulden,  Derek’s roommate woke up one morning to go to work, where he and Derek worked together, and he realized that Derek’s alarm was going off. at first he didn’t think much of it because Derek had a habit of waking up and leaving before his alarm would go off, but once he got to work, he realized something was wrong. 

Derek just simply wasn’t there. 

While at first Ryan, just kind of let this sit and decided that he wasn’t going to panic, he would end up calling Derek’s family and speaking to Derek’s dad Tim.

Derek’s family lived in Virginia and as soon as they realized that Derek was missing, they drove through the night to Tennessee. 

In the meantime, Ryan checked Derek’s computer and found that he had been searching the great Smoky Mountains and had booked a hotel in Cherokee North Carolina. 

They also learned that Derek had visited a bass pro shop before heading to the hotel, where he purchased $1,000 worth of new items including a sleeping bag, a tent, survival supplies, a map, compass, knife, headlamp, firestarter, and a survival manual. 

It really seemed like he was going to attempt to recreate his own version of bear grylls show, man vs wild. But, while Derek was already a knowledgeable camper, he didn’t have any survival or backcountry skills or experience. 

Armed with this information, Derek’s family went to the hotel and found video footage of Derek checking in.  With the police assistance, they entered the room and found that there was a Bible on the bed and a bottle of liquor on the floor.

Normally, this would have been… odd. The Bible was expected, but Derek didn’t start drinking until earlier that year. Tim, Derek’s dad, had spoken with his son on multiple occasions about how Derek was really unhappy with his life. He didn’t like his job and he just wasn’t feeling fulfilled with where he was. 

To cope with his displeasure, Derek had begun drinking and smoking cigarettes. 

But Nothing else was out of place. The video showed that Derek was leaving the hotel in Cherokee North Carolina on March 3, 2012 at 4:00 am. 

But no one has seen Derek sense. 

When his family went to search the trails, they Happened upon his car at about 8:30 am. He drove a white ford escape, that was found parked in the lower lot of Newfound gap at the state line. 

This might imply that he went towards the Newfound gap pass, but it is hard to tell what direction he went once he left his vehicle. 

But, inside his vehicle would tell a slightly different version of the story. Inside the escape was Derek’s keys, wallet, and nearly all of his newly purchased hiking equipment, including the survival items, the food, the new tent and sleeping bag. 

And most chilling of all, was a note in Derek’s handwriting that said “don’t come find me.”

On March 17, 5 days after he had last been seen, Derek was declared missing. 

Search and rescue, trail runners, volunteers and his family and friends all showed up to do everything they could to find Derek. 

Investigators began to ask if Derek had indicated that he was contemplating taking his life, And while most people would have said no- Tim wasn’t so sure. 

As days turned into weeks, Derek’s family became more and more aware that Derek might not be alive, but they held onto hope. 

Rangers would interview campers and hikers in the area, and family members would hand out thousands of fliers to anyone they saw. 

Despite talking to many families that had been in the area for days, no one recognized Derek. This lead authorities to believe that he likely stepped out onto the trail, and then disappeared off trail as soon as he found a spot to press through the foliage. 

And I want to throw in a quick note here, that unless you’ve been off trail before, and looking for the trail, under certain conditions, the trail can be very difficult to find even when it’s a dozen feet from you. Sam and I just had this happen a couple weeks ago where we ended up off trail, found some rock climbers and ended up asking them where the trail was, and they told us to just walk in a direction and 10 steps later we were on the trail. 

So I guess my point is, going off trail, when you don’t know where you are is a really, potentially deadly choice. 

60 people were assigned to the search to look for Derek, along with 3 dog teams from Tennessee department of correction officers. These numbers are not including volunteers, and all of these people would search 175 miles of trails surrounding the newfound gap parking lot and passing out 3,000 fliers. 

This turned up no clues to Derek’s wearabouts and It wasn’t until after rappelling down high cliffs on March 29, that the search began to be pulled back. 

Today, the family still praises the efforts of the rangers, park employees, volunteers and trail runners in the effort to find Derek. 

To complicate matters, search and rescue wasn’t able to focus on Derek’s disappearance alone. 

The day after Derek was labeled as a missing person, Sunday, March 18, Michael Giovanni Cocchini was reported missing after his car was found abandoned on the side of a road about 1 mile from the newfound gap parking lot that Derek’s car was found in. 

Michael was, also, 23 years old and after rangers saw his car parked in an area that didn’t really have a reason for any overnight camping or hiking, they investigated and found that Michael was missing. 

He is described as being 6 feet tall and 160 lbs. he was not a hiker or outdoorsman, so immediately rangers were concerned about what the motivation was for Michael to leave his car here. 

As rangers searched for both Derek and Michael, they would use helicopters 3 different days, as well as one flight at night to assist with using night vision, which of course is more effective in the dark. 

But, on August 21, 5 months later, some items would be spotted by a group of park employees who were in the area for a field study. They called in to the rangers, letting them know that they had found some items, and when the rangers got there to investigate, they found human remains and skull fragments just over ¼ of a mile or .5 km from where Michael left his car. 

The sevier county medical examiner, Knoxville regional forensic center and Knoxville county sheriffs forensic unit all got involved in this discovery. 

On September 6, it was confirmed through dental records that the remains found belonged to Michael Giovanni Cocchini, and while they couldn’t pinpoint the exact form of death, they feel confident that Michael took his own life.

This is partially based on the items that they found with his body- but they don’t identify specifically what this item or items are. 

Derek was last seen wearing black track, pants, white tennis shoes, a real tree, camouflage, rain jacket, and potentially a small and dark pack. 

Derek stands 5’11” or 180 cm tall and weighed about 220 pounds at the time of his disappearance. He has green eyes and brown hair and often wore a short beard. He wore prescription eyeglasses while driving, and had a Japanese tattoo character on his chest that means life or live. 

If anybody knows anything or has any information that could help lead to the whereabouts of Derek investigative services can be contacted through the national Park at 888-653-0009.