More than two months after Dan Campbell disappeared while on an antler-gathering trip in Yellowstone National Park, his brothers say they're not satisfied with investigations of the incident - and that their brother may have been murdered.
"If Dan's in the park, he's buried," said Rod Campbell, 37, of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. "I don't think Dan is alive. How that demise came, well, I've got a lot of mixed emotions about it."Investigators of Campbell's April disappearance, including the FBI and the National Park Service, say they have absolutely no clues to his whereabouts or his dog.
"We're really not doing a whole lot at this point because we've got nothing to go on," Park County Sheriff Charley Johnson said. "If we would come up with any new leads or information today or tomorrow, that would change."
Campbell, 42, of Big Timber, was reported missing April 8, four days after a female acquaintance claims to have driven him and his Australian shepherd to a trailhead at Hellroaring Creek, to collect elk antlers for profit. During that time, heavy snowstorms hit the area.
Campbell's two brothers from Coeur d'Alene said Dan had begun collecting antlers - an illegal activity in the park - to pay bills and finance a move to White Sulphur Springs.
"He had been running with some pretty shady characters," Billy Campbell, 41, told the Helena Independent Record last week. "I'm not saying he's an angel, because he's not."
The National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, FBI and Park and Sweet Grass counties have investigated Campbell's disappearance. The Park Service, with investigator Paul Miller heading the case, spearheaded unsuccessful aerial and ground searches.
"It's a big, wild place with a lot of niches and crannies," he said in mid-May. "A guy can get lost out here, and a searcher can walk within 10 feet of him and not find him."
Authorities have speculated that Campbell, a logger and pole cutter with extensive outdoors survival experience, purposely disappeared to escape his poor financial situation, or may have been murdered.
His brothers say if Campbell was lost or became injured in the park, someone would have found his remains or his wandering dog by now. They also say Dan isn't the type of person to pull a vanishing act.
The brothers and other family members want four of Campbell's acquaintances to submit to lie-detector tests. Authorities say that probably won't happen.