On a cold, calm morning in late October 2000, Samuel Jones loaded his pickup with sleeping bags, a camping stove, and a telescope. Simone, his 14-year-old daughter, was always curious and artistic, so she brought her old sketchbook and some graphite pencils. They were going to Guadalupe Peak in West Texas, which is a magnificent but inaccessible peak known for its amazing night skies. The father and daughter were going to go on a short excursion to get away and spend time together under the stars. Simone had been talking about drawing the Milky Way from the top of the mountain for weeks. Samuel told her he would show her the best vista in all of Texas.
They signed the trailhead register early that day and wrote, “Jones x 2—going up to stargaze.” It was the last time anyone knew they were there. Later that night, when they climbed to the top, they were meant to call Eleanor, Samuel’s ex-girlfriend and Simone’s mother. There was no call.
After not hearing from the park rangers for 24 hours, Eleanor called them. The quest began right away. Rescue personnel looked for people on foot, helicopters hovered over the area, and scent dogs tracked the area. They looked for signs of the two in the rugged terrain for days. But there was nothing. There were no tracks, no gear, and no problems. They found the truck where they had left it, and their names were in the logbook. After weeks with no new leads, the hunt was formally called off.
People in the area didn’t understand. People knew that Samuel was a strong and conscientious hiker who had been doing it for a long time. Simone was healthy, happy, and eager to learn. There was no proof of foul play, and there was no reason to believe they had departed on their own. People thought they had either been lost or hurt, which caused them to die because the conditions were so bad. Like in many cold cases, people stopped talking about their disappearance over time.
Eleanor’s life continued on, although it hurt. She kept whatever she could, such pictures, memories, and Simone’s last drawing, which she found in her room. There were pictures of her family, constellations, dreams of far-off places, and abstract things on the pages that she could never fully grasp. Simone was always a little odd, and her art was hard to explain.
Then, in the spring of 2013, everything was different.
Two experienced hikers who were lost in the remote sections of the Guadalupe Mountains found something terrible. They found a tent in a small gully that was partly hidden by rocks and plants. Even though it was old and about to fall down, the tent showed that it had been used for a long time. Inside were the bodies that had been supposed to be Samuel and Simone’s for a long time. DNA tests later confirmed it.
Even more interesting, some of Simone’s sketches were still safe inside a sleeve that could stand up to the weather. Some were of landscapes and stars, but others were very scary. A tall guy with no face kept coming up in the sketchbook. Sometimes it was in the background of scenes, while other times it was next to what looked like a younger Simone. There were a couple places near the image where the name “Caleb” was scrawled.
The detectives looked at the case again now that they had this additional material. They found a man named Caleb who lived in a small desert village some 40 miles from where the Joneses went missing. He moved away soon after the hunt ended and didn’t seem to have any ties to the family. Even while the coincidence raised suspicions, police couldn’t locate any convincing proof that he was connected to the case—no forensic evidence, no history of violence, and no clear relationship to Samuel or Simone.
Some individuals thought that “Caleb” might have been a dream, a metaphor, or even a fake person that Simone made up. Some others felt that the two might have met someone in the woods who led them astray or kept them hidden for reasons that were never found out. But the investigation met another dead end because there wasn’t much evidence and the trail had gone cold.
It was officially said that the cause of death was “undetermined.” The remains had gone too far to show the details. There were no clear signs of trauma, and there were no clear signs of how they died, whether it was from exposure, an accident, or something worse. Even though there was no proof, detectives and family members still felt concerned. Did the initial search assumptions, like only following known tracks, cause important chances to be missed?
Eleanor is in her 50s today and is a powerful but quiet voice for families of missing people. She speaks at gatherings not to start rumors or point fingers, but to remind people that not every mystery is solved and that some stories require more attention. She presents Simone’s drawings during her lectures not just to remind people how talented her daughter was, but also to highlight how even the simplest things, like a name written in a hurry or a tent that is hidden, can have meaning.
Eleanor’s sadness hasn’t lessened at all. But it has changed. What was once a private loss is now a public call for care, hard work, and not giving up too soon. She keeps Simone and Samuel’s memory alive by making sure that their disappearance and the legacy they left behind are still important.
The Joneses’ case is still open and hasn’t been solved yet. A vacation that began with stargazing and ended in silence is now a haunting question mark in the West Texas desert. The reality is somewhere between what we think we know and what we actually know. It could be in the mountains, in the pages of a lost girl’s notebook, or in the eyes of a mother who will always remember.