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The puzzling disappearance and death of Paul Miller in Joshua Tree National Park
Paul Miller, disappeared July 13, 2018, Joshua Tree National Park, California. Remains located December 19, 2019.
Revised December 2024
In July 2018, Paul Miller, 51, and his wife, Stephanie, from Ontario, Canada, embarked on a vacation through California and Nevada, with plans to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary in Las Vegas.
Their trips were typically adventures in the backwoods, filled with camping, hiking, and kayaking. They had journeyed across Canada, North America, and Mexico, fueled by their shared passion for the outdoors. Both Paul and Stephanie were seasoned hikers, fit and eager to explore new terrains.
On July 13, 2018, under the relentless desert sun, Paul decided to take one last hike before their trip to Las Vegas. He set his sights on the 49 Palms Oasis trail in Joshua Tree National Park, assuring Stephanie he would return by late morning. That was the last time Stephanie saw him.
Hours turned into days. Paul had vanished without a trace. Search parties combed the area, but the vast, unforgiving terrain seemed to swallow every clue. Stephanie clung to hope, haunted by what had happened to Paul.
Then, in late 2019, analysis of drone footage revealed a chilling discovery: Paul's remains, lying in a remote, off-trail area of Joshua Tree. The drone had found what countless human searchers searching for hundreds of hours could not.
Who was Paul Miller?
Stephanie and Paul Miller
Paul Miller had a degree in environmental sciences and worked for a small company making water filtration systems to bring water to different communities.
He was described as being fun to be around, with lots of friends, outgoing but caring and compassionate by friends.
The Miller’s kids had left home and were about to enter the “empty nest” stage of their lives. Stephanie described their relationship as being best friends, and they were looking forward to the next stage of their lives. They were a solid couple and loved spending time together.
Friends described Stephanie and Paul as having a great marriage, and they had just finished renovating a house they had bought four years before. Stephanie's permanent teaching job was confirmed in September 2018, and Paul had a raise at work. With the children leaving home and their work news, this was an ideal trip to have their first vacation just as a couple to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary.
Paul was always on the go, never a couch potato and loved getting out in nature, especially with his camera. He was in great shape and never had any medical conditions, with no family history of health problems.
The Miller family holiday
Paul and Stephanie traveled by air from their home in Guelph, a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, to Las Vegas, Nevada, on an unknown date in early July 2018. On arrival in Las Vegas, they rented a car from Hertz. They headed towards Twenty Nine Palms in California, intending to spend their 26th wedding anniversary there and hike the Joshua Tree National Park. They stayed at Motel 6, 72562 Twenty-nine Palms Highway, around 8.5 miles from the northern park entrance.
The trip to Twentynine Palms and hike to Joshua Tree National Park
The Millers were getting ready to leave their hotel room in Motel 6 in Twentynine Palms on July 13, 2018, the last day of their trip, but Paul wanted to take one more short hike to take some pictures of some bighorn sheep. Paul promised Stephanie to be back later that morning. They had already hiked several trails in the park, including areas of Barker Dam and Black Rock.
He left the hotel alone around 9 am and drove to the 49 Palms Oasis trail in Joshua Tree National Park, arriving at 9.20-9.30 am via Canyon Road. Stephanie was going to accompany her husband on the morning hike, but with time constraints pressuring them on the morning of their last day, she decided to stay at the hotel and pack up their belongings. Check-out at the hotel was 11 am (actually noon). They had gone to have a leisurely breakfast at Denny’s that morning. Stephanie was also a slower hiker than Paul, and they had both hiked in Joshua on July 12, so, reluctantly, he decided to go on the solo hike.
The motel was very close to the trail, and Paul was sure he could do the hike and return within a couple of hours, as they had to be in Vegas to catch the flight back to Ontario.
Paul wore dark shorts, dark grey, almost black Hi-Tec Altitude VI WP hiking boots, a black hat, sunglasses, a Camelbak hydration pack, and a Nikon D5300 camera. He left his wallet and cell phone at the motel, which was not unusual for Paul when hiking.
Joshua Tree National Park 49 Palms Oasis
The 49 Palms Oasis Trail at Joshua National Park
Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, near Palm Springs, covering 790,636 acres. It is named after Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), native to the Mojave Desert. Initially declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act.
According to the NPS, "The 49 Palms Oasis Trail offers a three-mile round-trip hike to a fan palm oasis. It requires two to three hours and is rated moderately strenuous, ascending about 300 feet each way. This well-maintained trail climbs to a ridge where many barrel cacti dot the landscape. After winding around the ridge top, the trail descends steeply to the oasis in a rocky canyon. Towering palms create a canopy over clear pools of water. Large boulders provide a place to rest and enjoy the sights and sounds of this small ecosystem."
George Land from the NPS said, “It’s not a real difficult trail. You go in and come out the same way. However, it is a little bit of a rigorous trail.” and it generally takes most visitors around 1.5 hrs to complete there and back.
The disappearance of Paul Miller and the search begins
When Paul hadn’t returned by 11 am, the motel checkout time, Stephanie grew increasingly concerned. It was very unlike Paul not to return on time, especially as they had a flight to catch. She contacted National Park officials at Joshua at the nearest office at around 11.30 am. Ranger Ashe was notified of Paul’s situation at around 11.45 am. Given the high temperatures in Joshua Tree at this time of the year, 100°F plus (38°C) park rangers took Stephanie’s concerns seriously. Upon arriving at Joshua, Ranger Ashe began a search and found two vehicles parked: a tan Hyundai sedan registered to Hertz (Paul’s vehicle) and a blue Audi sedan registered to a private citizen.
He conducted an NPS search urgency assessment and concluded a measured response was required based on the information at the time. Rangers Mo and Ashe immediately searched the 49 Palms Canyon Trail from the trailhead to its end at the 49 Palms Oasis. Upon approaching the oasis, they came across a white male adult hiking away from the oasis. He stated he drove a blue Audi Sedan and had not seen any other people during his hike. Ashe and Mo then searched the area around the oasis but returned to the trailhead, given the high temperatures.
By 2 pm, a full Search and Rescue operation had started. At 4 pm, the washes leading off the 49 Palms Oasis Trail, the rocky areas, and side canyons began to be searched until 10 pm that first day.
For five days, the search for Paul continued in the Park, involving 600 people putting in 6000 hours (90 people at peak), up to 20 dog teams, an ATV search team and a helicopter.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department deputies, detectives, search and rescue and emergency services; California Rescue Dog Association; Nevada Search and Rescue; and the National Park Service with personnel from the Investigative Services Branch, Mojave National Preserve, Death Valley National Park, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Joshua Tree National Park all participated in the search. Due to steep ravines and cliffs, technical specialists with high-angle rescue skills were also deployed.
But no sign of Paul was located, and no other evidence other than his car that he was in the park, such as his camera turned up. Park Superintendent David Smith said, "We have a witness who saw (Miller) at the trailhead that morning, but that’s all.”
Another visitor from England at the park reported seeing Paul at around 9 am, walking quickly and with purpose; about halfway down the trail, he was resting by a rock that offered shade. The witness reported seeing one other vehicle, two women and two men in their 20s who went in after Paul down the trail, but authorities have been unable to locate it. There was no camera in the parking lot at the park at the time of the disappearance.
Despite a large number of K9 teams, the dogs were unable to pick up a scent. It can be hard to detect scent in high temperatures in the Park at that time of the year. One of the dogs even had the pads of its feet burnt. Because of the high heat, infrared FLIR detection using helicopters was also impossible as the rocks were warmer than the human body.
The search was scaled back after five days of intensive search on July 18, 2018. The probability of Paul’s survival in the extreme heat was low, and park authorities decided to scale back the official search.
Park Superintendent Smith said in mid-August 2018, there were no new clues as to what happened to Paul Miller, stating, “I assure them, the park service will not forget about Mr. Miller. We are doing all that we can. The FBI is called in only if there is a murder or homicide, and at this point, there is no indication that is the case ... nothing to indicate this was a planned disappearance.”
Stephanie said, "Maybe he finished the trail and came out, and something happened. We really don’t know. But if they can’t find him in the park, then what’s to say he’s not out of the park?”
Anyone hiking in such heat moving in an off-trail area strewn with boulders, rattlesnakes and other dangers would not have survived long, even with plenty of water.
What happened to Paul Miller?
NPS Scenarios Paul Miller Joshua Tree National Park
The NPS considered several scenarios, and they believed he had hiked off-trail around 1 mile south of the trailhead in order to photograph big horn sheep. He most likely fell whilst he was taking pictures on his camera and was injured and became immobile or unconscious. He then succumbed to the extreme heat.
Alternatively, another scenario was one where Paul did not turn around at the Oasis and instead continued south into a drainage and went further southwest before dying due to the heat.
The lowest likelihood scenarios were Foul Play and self-harm. But without any sign of Paul’s remains it was all theories.
The search continues
Additional searches took place in the months after Paul disappeared with limited park resources. On August 5, 2018, a search began early in the morning with support and advice from Nevada State Search and Rescue ground searchers and canines beginning at the Oasis and started working the trail back to the parking area.
A nearby Hill area was also searched because ravens and buzzards were seen circling the area, but nothing was found at the time. The only thing of note was some canine interest about a quarter of a mile up the trail from the trailhead. All units completed searching by 9:30 a.m. on August 6.
Five Searchers and a dog were used to search the area a quarter of a mile from the trailhead where the dogs had shown interest before, but no further clues were located. However, the canine continued to show interest in this particular area. Search efforts continued on August 12, early in the morning, to follow up on the clues found during previous searches. Once again, despite skilled SAR personnel on the scene, nothing was found that helped the search for Paul.
On September 9, a small group of searchers decided to look into some shelters and caves that were known to be in the region in case Paul had found one and decided to take cover. However, due to a lack of personnel, only five people were available, and nobody was able to complete their assigned search segments, and again, the efforts led to nothing.
In September 2018, the park closed the trail for a few days while a helicopter flew over, using a new software system that takes high-resolution photos, homing in on any anomalies.
In November 2018, family members and friends, accompanied by some Joshua Tree Search and Rescue members, went back to the park unofficially. They could use GPX tracks of the areas the NPS had already searched. This allowed them to focus on new areas of interest,. They also put up posters around the park and nearby towns and did their best to alert hikers to be on the lookout for any clues.
On December 6, someone contacted the National Park Service about an unknown rib cage found in the 49 Palms Oasis. When a ranger arrived, he was shown photos of a spinal column. The following day, rangers hiked out to the location of the discovery. Photographs were taken of the bones, which were then sent out to a coroner to be identified. It was later determined that they were not human.
The Sierra Madre Search and Rescue went into the area to perform a search as a training exercise.
Drone search for Paul Miller
Paul’s sister, Dawne Robinson, encouraged the park to allow a drone search of the 49 Palms area. It was such rugged terrain to search thoroughly, and other places were inaccessible on foot. However, flying drones within a national park is illegal, and the park service does not generally grant special permission.
After many setbacks, Dawne Robinson eventually located a team of SAR drone operators from a Utah-based nonprofit organization, Western States Aerial Search, who applied for a special use permit and were able to get their request granted in November 2019.
The drone team planned to fly three to four drones for three days over the park, taking thousands of high-resolution pictures over a wide area. The drones eventually took 6,711 images, which the pilots uploaded to DropBox, an online file-storage service. Volunteers began scouring the photographs for signs of Paul Miller.
According to Greg Nuckolls, founder of Western States Aerial Search, Sara Francis Kelley and Morgan Clements found evidence of human remains in the photos. The aerial picture appeared to show a light-colored object which appeared to be a human femur bone. Rangers were notified on December 19, 2018, and provided with GPS coordinates of the rocky, steep location.
Remains located
Law enforcement rangers hiked to the spot the next day and found human skeletal remains and personal belongings. The remains were tucked into steep terrain but within 60 feet of where searchers had previously looked. They entered the area near the 49 Palms Oasis on December 20 at around 2 pm, starting at the 49 Palms trailhead, and made their way toward the GPS coordinates provided by the drone operator.
They later decided to hike down a drainage from the ridge line on the trail and go downhill towards their target. This drainage reportedly went in a southeasterly direction. At around 3:30 p.m., in the drainage, they located a pair of dark-colored cargo shorts under several large rocks and partially buried in the sand. The shorts were covered in dirt and torn in several places. They were a size 32, and the maker tag indicated they were manufactured in Canada. Nothing was found in the pockets.
The Rangers put the shorts in an evidence bag, and then further down the drainage around 3:45 p.m., one of the Rangers located a boot under several large rocks. The boot was very worn and appeared to be a tan color military style size 9, and there were no identifiable marks on it. They then put the boot in an evidence bag as the team approached the lower section of the drainage near the coordinates they were given and observed what looked to be a partial human spine lying in the sand at around 4 p.m.
Dawne said that Paul was found hidden in the back of a crevice partway down the main wash leading from the Oasis and towards 29 Palms. There is a very clear drainage or wash heading from the 49 Palms Oasis and north-northeast toward the Town. Paul was still close to the end of the trail. Two branches led into the wash, and based on the NPS report, the Rangers started finding the clothes and boots along this drainage as it headed southeasterly. This then connected with the main where they found the remaining remains.
The bones that were initially discovered, which included a spine and femur, were photographed by the recovery team and at around 4.10 p.m., they found a human skull lying on the open ground, with the mandible missing. A purple and gray osprey backpack was about 10 feet from the skull and in an upright position, and it contained the Hyundai rental car keys, the Nikon camera, a roll of toilet paper and about a half-litre to 1 litre of water in a Camelback style water bladder.
Rangers inventoried the backpack, and then they continued searching the area and found several other bones that appeared to be human. After reporting to the Chief Ranger and contacting San Bernardino County, the team left the area around 4:30 p.m. The case was then transferred to San Bernardino County Sheriff, who returned to the scene on December 21 with a coroner.
According to Dawne, the photographs on the camera helped piece together some of Paul's last moments. She said that the photos showed that Paul made it to the Oasis and that he was returning to the parking lot when something happened. Paul decided to go off Trail; maybe he saw a big horn sheep. She said that when she went to the Oasis herself, she noticed hikers sometimes accidentally following an animal Trail down the main wash, but she said that most of the time, these people turned back to the main trail.
Remains confirmed as Paul Miller
In mid-January 2020, official identification of the remains found at the end of 2019 was made and confirmed to be that of Paul Miller.
What killed Paul Miller in Joshua Tree National Park?
It appeared that Paul Miller had sought shelter From the sun in the only shady area he could find, a rocky crevice. Whatever happened to Paul appears to have happened quickly as there was still quite a bit of water in his camelback, and hence, it is believed he may have had some kind of medical emergency like a heart attack and then died from the heat within the first few hours.
Whatever caused Paul to go off Trail will never be known. Potential reasons include:
Suffering from confusion and disorientation from the heat
A medical emergency like a heart attack or stroke caused him to seek shelter
He was relieving himself, stumbled, and fell, hitting his head against a rock.
He met someone on the trail that caused him to run for safety. The coroner confirmed that there was no evidence that Paul had succumbed to foul play, but the state of the remains made it impossible to determine a cause of death
Stephanie Miller said that it appeared he had made the hike to Fortynine Palms Oasis and was coming back out the wrong way. Early in the search, teams had gotten close enough to where the remains were found that he would have heard and responded when they called out his name, she said, adding there is comfort knowing he didn’t suffer long., “I hated to think he was suffering, and we couldn’t find him.”
Trailhead 49 Palms Oasis Trail
Joshua Tree National Park Paul Miller search area
Joshua Tree National Park Paul Miller search area
Paul Miller’s shorts discovered December 20, 2019
Paul Miller’s boot discovered December 20, 2019
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Further viewing and listening
The Missing Enigma: Death In Joshua Tree - The Story Of Paul Miller
Sources
#findpaulmiller on Twitter
https://www.facebook.com/FindPaulMiller/posts/
http://www.thevanishedpodcast.com/archive
https://www.nps.gov/jotr/planyourvisit/upload/49siteMap.pdf
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2018/07/21/missing-without-trace-family-friends-canadian-hiker-paul-miller-hold-tight-hope-hes-alive-joshua-tre/813118002/
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2018/08/18/guelph-ontario-canada-resident-paul-miller-missing-hiker-joshua-tree-national-park/1032363002/
https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/missing-guelph-man-s-family-urges-search-to-continue-1.4062417
https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/8854051-wife-of-missing-guelph-hiker-remaining-hopeful/
https://eu.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2019/12/21/joshua-tree-national-park-human-remains-found/2724249001/
https://eu.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2020/01/14/remains-found-joshua-tree-national-park-identified-canadian-paul-miller/4432976002/
https://eu.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2018/11/10/sister-hikes-joshua-tree-national-park-searching-missing-canadian-hiker-paul-miller/1936059002/
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ep4j7w/resolved_human_remains_found_in_joshua_tree/