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On Sunday evening, November 18, 2012, when 13-year-old Dylan Redwine landed at Durango-La Plata County airport in Durango, Colorado for a court-ordered Thanksgiving visit with his father, he responded to his mom’s earlier text at 7:06 pm to let her know that his dad picked him up. His text read, Yes, followed by a frowning emoji.
Elaine felt sick inside, knowing that her son, who she’d nicknamed Bubby, did not want to be there with his father. Sadly, Elaine never saw her son again as by the following evening, Dylan would be missing.
Dylan was born on February 6, 1999 as the younger of two sons to parents Elaine & Mark Redwine. His brother Cory was eight years older & the family originally lived together in Durango, a town in the southwestern portion of Colorado not far from the borders of Utah, Arizona & New Mexico. Two years before Dylan vanished, the town had a population of about 17,000 in 2010.
After eighteen years of marriage, when Dylan had been 8, Elaine & Mark made the decision to divorce. Sadly, their custody battle was just as contentious as the split itself. After Elaine moved six hours away to the Colorado Springs area with her boys, she began securing primary custody of Cory & Dylan.
Meanwhile, Mark stayed back in the Vallecito area, a nearly 5 ½ hour drive southwest of where his sons were living in Colorado Springs. He lived in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house at 2343 County Road in Bayfield, Colorado on a quiet stretch of road surrounded by dense forests & rugged mountain terrain. He was near the Vallecito Reservoir, one of the state’s largest & highest bodies of water sitting at 7,800 feet.
Since Mark worked as a long-haul trucker, he was often away from home for stretches of time. Dylan & Cory would see their dad when they could during holiday breaks from school, but as time went on, e-mails & communications made it clear that Mark was not at all happy with the custody situation.
The going back-and-forth between his mom & dad’s house was also wearing on Dylan. As he was growing & maturing, he began to see exactly the type of person his father was. As his visits to Vallecito were approaching, it became something that Dylan dreaded, something his friends from Colorado Springs were able to pick up on. Joseph Ceballos, who was 12 at the time, later testified that the night before Dylan flew out to spend Thanksgiving of 2012 with his father, he could see not only dread in his friend’s eyes, but also fear.
After Sixth Judicial District Judge David Dickenson had granted Mark visitation rights over the Thanksgiving holiday, there was nothing Dylan or Elaine could do since he was a minor. Cory was able to avoid the same fate since he was 21 & allowed to make his own decisions.
Dylan’s previous visits with his father had not gone well as they’d argued a lot & hadn’t been getting along in the timeframe leading up to the holiday.
It was a painful time for Elaine as her mother was battling cancer & she wanted the family to spend what could be their last Thanksgiving together. She also felt helpless that she wasn’t able to help her son who had no choice but to go where he didn’t want to be.
As Elaine pulled up to the airport & watched her 13-year-old walk from her car toward the double-doors, her stomach was in knots. Sadly, this was the last time she ever saw him.
After Dylan landed at Durango-La Plata County Airport, surveillance captured video of Dylan & Mark walking through the terminal together. Prosecutors later pointed out how there had been little to no interaction between the father & son as they walked together, a space separating their physical & emotional distance.
From the airport, Mark drove Dylan to the Walmart in Durango where they arrived at about 7:05 pm to buy a couple of DVDs. As was the case with the surveillance from the airport, Mark & Dylan seemed to barely interact while they were shopping. From here, they stopped at McDonald’s at 7:22 pm & then made the 30-minute drive to Mark’s home on County Road 500.
As he settled into his dad’s home, Dylan was texting with his friend Amanda Saxton, talking about movies & TV in general, telling her that he’d been watching Adventureland. He was also texting with another friend, Ryan Nava, who lived nearby. Dylan asked if he could spend the night at Ryan’s house, but his dad told him no.
As the boys continued to text, they started to form a plan for the next morning. Dylan said he would go to Ryan’s grandmother’s house & knock on her sliding door at 6:30 am.
Dylan sent his final message at 9:37 pm & by 9:46 pm his phone’s battery had died or it had been switched off. Elaine texted her son to check in & see how things were going at about 10 pm, but there was no reply. Dylan, being a typical teen, was never far from technology, but from here, he went permanently silent.
When Ryan Nava was getting ready for bed that night, he set his alarm so he was ready for his friend’s knock on the sliding door at 6:30 am. When he woke the next morning, he texted his friend at 6:46 am asking, where are you, but received no response.
According to Mark, he’d left his house around 7:30 am on Monday, November 19 to run errands in Durango, claiming that Dylan had been asleep. When he got back at about 11:30 am, he said that Dylan was gone, but the TV was on & tuned to Nickelodeon. There was a cereal bowl in the sink & since Dylan’s backpack containing all of his belongings was gone, Mark made the assumption that his son had gone to hang out with some friends.
As the afternoon continued on & there was no word from Dylan, Mark began calling around to see if anyone had heard from him, but no one had. As he began looking more closely around his house, he said he realized that all of Dylan’s belongings were missing.
At 6 pm, Mark reported his son missing & then texted Elaine, explaining that after he left Dylan home alone that morning, he came back to find that he was gone. She immediately knew that something was not right, texting her ex-husband back, He wouldn’t just leave. He would have called me. I am so suspect of you right now. How could he just disappear?
Since Elaine knew her son so well, she knew how responsible of a kid he was & he was always good about getting himself up in the morning when he needed to be somewhere. Since he’d told Ryan he would be over there at 6:30 am, it didn’t make sense that when Mark was up & about, ready to leave the house at 7:30 am, he claimed that Dylan hadn’t wanted to get up.
After Elaine called 911, the dispatcher took down the details as she prepared to make the 5 1/2 hour drive from her home in Colorado Springs. She arrived in Bayfield at about 2 am on Tuesday, November 20, holding Dylan’s pillow from home so police dogs could track his scent.
At 2:35 am, she felt utterly terrified & desperate as she texted her son, Dylan, please be safe. Mom is here to come get you son.
Police dogs were able to track Dylan’s scent about 100 yards through the frigid cold down the road from Mark’s house until it suddenly lost it.
The search for 13-year-old Dylan was one of the largest & most grueling searches that La Plata County had ever seen. Since the landscape in the surrounding area of Mark’s home was so vast & rugged, spanning roughly 12 miles of wilderness around the Vallecito Reservoir, it was an arduous task. Not only did temperatures drop well below freezing, but the terrain rose & fell between 8,000-11,000 feet of elevation between mountains, steep canyons & the dense forests in between.
Authorities as well as volunteer searchers methodically canvassed the area, searching the reservoir utilizing dogs, divers, boats that were equipped with sonar, helicopters & fixed-wing aircraft. Teams handed out fliers with Dylan’s information while they also searched through abandoned buildings. The group of searchers grew to about 200, volunteers going door-to-door, checking every structure in the area.
According to Mark, his son’s fishing rod was one of the items missing from the house, suggesting that he may have gone out to the lake alone since he had a love of the outdoors. With this information, they heavily focused on the reservoir, but from the beginning, Elaine argued against this idea.
According to Elaine, her son was not a lover of fishing & he wasn’t even able to even string his own rod. She also argued that he never watched Nickelodeon & instead, he preferred MTV. The small details her ex had painted were not lining up who she knew her son to be.
As the days turned into weeks, the search expanded as tips flooded in from across the country as well as around the globe. Calls ranged from psychics to someone in Australia who claimed to have seen Dylan in a restaurant. Vigils were held while Dylan’s friends joined in on the searches, desperate to find their friend. Billboards & signs around town posted information about the missing teen.
The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office worked alongside the Durango Police Department as well as the FBI & the CBI. But as time continued to go by, they began to run out of places to look.
From the beginning, Mark’s behavior struck many as off as he gave the appearance of someone who was only feigning concern about his missing son. While volunteers were combing through the terrain throughout the frigid, cold night, Mark was home in bed, asleep. Meanwhile, Elaine was running on basically no sleep at all.
Mark claimed to be helping to find his son in his own way, but outside of a handful of media appeals, he was not out in the wilderness, searching alongside everyone else.
Those who watched the news coverage of Dylan’s case also couldn’t help but notice that Mark referenced his son in the past tense. He described him as a wonderful boy who meant everything.
According to Mark’s coworker, he was surprised that Mark had come in on the morning after Dylan landed in Durango, assuming he was taking time off to be with his son. He also noticed that he looked especially haggard & exhausted as if he’d gotten no sleep at all.
When police came to his home for a statement, they saw that it was littered with empty liquor bottles. Meanwhile, Elaine was very outspoken about her suspicions, firm on the belief that Mark knew more than he was letting on.
Within days of Dylan’s disappearance, investigators spoke with Betsy Horvath, Mark’s ex-wife, who also felt that Mark had done something to Dylan. During a camping trip in the late 1980s when they’d been staying in a remote campsite in the mountains, he looked around & randomly told her this would be a good place to leave a body. During their divorce & custody battle, he told Betsy that he would kill their kids before he let her have them. These words were now especially haunting since he was the last person to see Dylan, he & Elaine had been in the midst of a contentious custody battle regarding Dylan & he lived in such a remote, rugged location.
Dylan had been outspoken about the fact that he had no interest in visiting his father who he felt uncomfortable with. He was tired of hearing him speak poorly of his mom & his older brother. Even more concerning, authorities came to learn that about a year before Dylan disappeared when he, his dad & Cory had taken a road trip together in 2011, a then 12-year-old Dylan came across something concerning on his father’s laptop. While Mark had been asleep, Dylan came across shocking photos that depicted Mark wearing women’s lingerie & eating feces from a baby’s diaper while dressed in a diaper.
Dylan quickly got his older brother’s attention & motioned Cory to the bathroom. After quietly locking the door, the brothers combed over the images together as Cory took photos of them with his phone.
Cory later testified that Dylan had been quietly keeping the photos as leverage, something he could use against his dad if he ever tried to lecture him or establish a moral authority. Only three months before he vanished, Dylan texted Cory, asking him to send him the photos after their father had just given him a speech about Cory being a bad example.
Cory chose not to send the photos to his little brother, but he did send them to his dad which meant that before Dylan boarded the plane to stay with his dad over Thanksgiving break, Mark knew that his sons had discovered the secret part of himself.
Dylan had also confided in his friends, telling them he planned to confront his dad about the pictures over the Thanksgiving break. Whether he did this on the first night of his visit, possibly out of anger when Mark forbade him from spending the night at Ryan’s house, is unknown. Prosecutors would later argue that when Dylan confronted his dad, Mark erupted into a violent rage that ended his own son’s life.
Two months after he vanished, Dylan’s family & friends organized a protest outside of Mark’s home, demanding answers. Not only had he been the last person to see him, but he’d done little to search for him.
By early December, the task force involved in Dylan’s disappearance made the significant announcement that they determined that Dylan had not run away. They did not elaborate as to why they’d come to this conclusion, but it was clear that investigators determined that rather than wandering off, someone had done something to Dylan.
Mark’s neighbor, Carrie Cochran, noticed that on Monday morning, November 19, Mark’s exterior front porch light had been on at 2 am, but when she looked later that morning while it was still dark, she saw that it was off.
After search warrants were secured for Mark’s home, they found Dylan’s blood in multiple areas of the living room, including the couch, the floor in front of the couch, the corner of the coffee table, on the floor under the rug as well as on a love seat.
Mark’s home had been previously severely damaged in a fire with a remodel that finished in March 2012, eight months before Dylan’s Thanksgiving visit. According to Mark, his son hadn’t visited much since the remodel & he said that he hadn’t suffered an injury that would have led to bleeding during any of those visits, but he also said that it could have been from them roughhousing.
On August 5, 2013, about nine months after Dylan disappeared, a human remains detection dog handler & her K9 Molly searched through Mark’s home to determine if a deceased person had been present at that location. Molly indicated the presence of human remains in various areas around the house, including where blood had been found in the living room as well as in the washing machine.
These were indications of the presence of a large source of human remains. Molly also alerted at Mark’s clothing that he reported wearing on the night of his son’s disappearance. When Molly searched Mark’s Dodge pick-up truck six months later on February 13, 2014, the dog alerted to several locations including the bed of the truck.
Although Mark had claimed that Dylan’s fishing pole was missing & investigators confirmed that it wasn’t there during their initial searches, suddenly, in July 2013, it was back in Mark’s garage. Although law enforcement had been searching for the pole since Dylan’s disappearance & Mark had been asked repeatedly to look for it at his house, he said he didn’t find it until he was moving an ATV in his garage.
While the search for Dylan continued, his case exploded onto national headlines. Mark, Elaine & Cory all appeared on The Dr. Phil Show in February 2013 as well as in later episodes. Elaine confronted Mark on camera, believing he had done something terrible to their son & his remains were lying somewhere in the mountains. Mark denied having any involvement, calling the suggestion unconscionable.
When the subjects of Mark’s hidden photos came up, he ridiculously claimed to have staged the images as a deliberate trap since he suspected his sons were snooping through his house. Elaine knew in her soul that the only concern Mark had was for himself while he had none at all for their son.
In April 2013, five months after Dylan vanished, Dylan’s stepfather saw Mark driving his pickup along MIddle Mountain Road, a remote gravel road that climbs up into the mountains above the Vallecito Reservoir. Since the road is so rugged & primarily utilized by hunters, campers & ATV riders, it struck him as very odd.
During the wintertime, the road is basically inaccessible since snow blankets the terrain at elevations between 8,000-11,000 feet with accumulation lasting well into summer. Since the roads & paths are normally closed during colder months, searchers had no access to Middle Mountain Road while looking for Dylan.
When the snow began to melt in June 2013 & investigators were finally able to reach this area, the seven month search for Dylan came to a tragic end.
On June 25, 2013, searchers first came upon Dylan’s Nike Air Jordan shoes that had gotten caught up in some branches. Over the next five days, authorities searched over a roughly one-mile area of the upper portion of Middle Mountain where they recovered three human bones, torn scraps of a t-shirt, an elastic underwear band & a sock.
This was about 8 miles up Middle Mountain Road from Mark’s house, roughly 1 mile past the gate that closes seasonally around November 30 each year. His remains were found only 100 yards or so from the road off an ATV trail. Since Mark had an ATV, he was very familiar with Middle Mountain Road.
On November 1, 2015, almost 2 ½ years after the initial remains were found, hikers about 1.5 miles higher up on Middle Mountain Road found Dylan’s skull in a coyote den.
According to a wildlife expert, no animal known to the area would have moved the body up the mountain from Mark’s house had Dylan been attacked & killed by a bear or a mountain lion. Even moreso, Dylan’s skull had been found even further away from the rest of his remains which was consistent with a human concealing the skull in order to hide the victim’s identity & cause of death rather than an animal.
According to forensic anthropologists, Dylan’s skull had injuries that were consistent with blunt force trauma at two locations, one that was above his left eye. These were two small markings that were consistent with a knife or a tool that left a V-shaped indentation in the bone rather than markings that were made from animal teeth which would have created a U-shaped mark. These markings occurred perimortem, meaning that the bone still had characteristics of wet bone similar to a recently deceased person.
On June 27, 2013, when Mark was notified that his son’s first remains had been found, Dylan’s half-brother, Brandon Redwine, told authorities about a strange conversation he’d had with his dad. Mark had mentioned blunt force trauma several times & discussed how investigators would need to find the rest of his body, including the skull, before they would be able to determine Dylan’s cause of death.
Mark had been alone with Dylan on the last night of his life when Dylan sent his last message at 9:37 pm on Sunday night, November 18, 2012. Dylan’s blood was found in various areas of Mark’s living room while cadaver dogs alerted that a deceased person had been in his living room, on Mark’s clothing as well as in the bed of his pickup truck. Dylan’s remains were then ultimately found in an area where Mark was both familiar with & one he had access to & had been seen driving along.
With Dylan’s remains having been found in two locations, with his skull located further away, it was clear this had been intentionally done in order to conceal the boy’s identity as well as his cause of death, no doubt by the last person who had been with him.
Following a grand jury indictment for second-degree murder & child abuse resulting in death, Mark’s was arrested on July 22, 2017 in Washington state, nearly five years after his son’s murder. He pleaded not guilty & remained in custody on a $1 million cash-only bond.
The trial was initially set to begin in 2018, but after several delays, one involving the arrest of Mark’s lawyer on domestic violence charges in 2019 as well as multiple delays related to COVID-19, the trial didn’t start until June 21, 2021 when Mark Redwine was 59-years-old.
Cory Redwine testified about how the accidental discovery of their father’s photos had severely damaged Dylan’s relationship with their father. Prosecutors argued that Mark had killed his son in a fit of rage after Dylan confronted him about the photos which were shown in court. They accused Mark of dismembering his son’s body & then scattering his skull & other remains up Middle Mountain Road from his house.
Under cross-examination, Cory said he sent the photos to his dad in August 2012 while Dylan & Mark had been alone on a trip together. Since Dylan hadn’t been harmed during that trip, Mark’s defense attorney, John Moran, argued that the photos had no connection to Dylan’s death & suggested that Dylan had run away from home.
Fractures on Dylan’s skull showed clear evidence of blunt-force trauma leading to his death while smaller cuts & markings suggested it had been tampered with using human tools. Defense attorney John Moran argued that the marks had been more likely caused by a bear or a mountain lion & after Dylan had left his father’s house on foot to meet his friend, he was likely attacked & killed by a wild animal.
Brandon Redwine testified about how his father had spontaneously broached the subject of blunt-force trauma several times during a phone conversation in June 2013, the day that bones on the mountain were confirmed to be Dylan’s, but two years before his skull was found. As Brandon ended their call, he told his wife that it was as if his father was telling him what happened.
According to testimony from forensic pathologist Robert Kurtzman, Dylan’s manner of death was homicide & he agreed with forensic anthropologist Diane France, who testified earlier in the trial, that Dylan’s skull had evidence of blunt-force trauma. Since no organs or soft tissue had been available to evaluate, the cause of death could not be determined as the head injury alone may not have caused his death.
Sharp injuries were found at the cheek area of Dylan’s skull, markings that don’t occur in nature as bears don’t walk through the woods with knives.
In regards to the blood evidence found in Mark’s living room that was a match to Dylan, Moran argued that the amount had been so small that it had likely been left behind from normal activity of a 13-year-old boy who played baseball & football & went fishing. He also argued that human-remains tracking dogs often hit on false positives.
On July 16, 2021, after less than a day of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict, finding Mark Redwine guilty of second-degree murder & child abuse resulting in his son’s death. As the verdict was read, he showed no reaction whatsoever as he stood with his hands clasped in front of him.
On October 8, 2021, Mark was sentenced to 48 years in prison.
Although Elaine had felt heartbroken, watching her 13-year-old son walk away toward the terminal where he would board a plane to spend Thanksgiving with his father, knowing he did not want to go, she never imagined that his father would have ever done something to harm their son. Elaine is left to wonder what her son’s last moments entailed, how he must have felt looking up at his father as he began to attack him.
Since Mark has maintained his innocence, no one will ever know what actually happened in that living room on the night of Sunday, November 18, 2012. What is known is that a 13-year-old boarded a plane he did not want to board & landed in a place he did not want to be to spend his break with a person that made him feel highly uncomfortable. But because a court order insisted he be there, neither Dylan nor Elaine could do anything about it.
After years of searching, waiting & holding on to hope, it all came down to Mark Redwine, the person who helped create him, who had been meant to protect him, the person who had ultimately ended his life. Although justice has been served, it doesn’t take away the fact that Dylan will never be coming back.
A memorial bench sits at Pine River Cemetery in Bayfield with Dylan’s name on it while friends & family have left painted rocks, baseball gear & flowers there. On February 6, 2017, what would have been Dylan’s 18th birthday, a small group gathered at the bench with pizza, sodas & birthday cake to share memories about their friend.
When his friends graduated from high school in 2017, an empty chair was set up among the graduating class with a photo of him displayed on it. Those who walked across the stage Dylan was meant to walk across, wore blue & silver ribbons in his honor.
If you suspect are are aware that a child is being abused, please contact the National Child Abuse Hotline at 800-422-4453 or text BEGIN to that same number.
References:
- Durango.com: Where is Durango
- Grand Jury indictment of Mark Redwine
- Sentinel: Father of southwest Colorado boy, 13, arrested for boy’s 2012 death
- The Denver Post: Mark Redwine trial: Discovery of sordid photos damaged Dylan’s relationship with father, brother says
- The Denver Post: Mark Redwine murder trial: Dylan suffered skull fracture around time of death, expert testifies
- DH News: Evidence from skull central in Mark Redwine trial
- DH News: Forensic pathologist says Dylan Redwine suffered blunt force trauma
- CBS Austin: Testimony: Brother confronted father with his feces photo
- KCBY 11: Colorado father convicted of killing his 13-year-old son
- The Colorado Sun: Mark Redwine sentenced to 48 years in prison for killing his 13-year-old son
- Nancy Grace: Search continues for Dylan Redwine
- Denver 7: Jury finds Mark Redwine guilty of murder, child abuse resulting in death of son Dylan
- Medium: The frowning emoji that told a mother everything: The heartbreaking case of Dylan Redwine
