The local coroner and law enforcement set out for the site along with about 20 volunteers and discovered the bodies of all five men in various states of decomposition, having been left to the elements and animals for four months. First responders to the site noted that it appeared that "extreme violence" had befallen the men, and it was putrid with the smell of death. Frank Miller's head was missing entirely from the campsite; his and Israel Swan's corpses had been considerably worked upon by scavengers and were little more than scattered bones. Israel's skull had a jagged chunk missing out of it, and it was presumed that Miller's head had been carried away by an animal. The bodies of George Noon and James Humphrey were largely flayed torsos of rotting viscera, attached to skeletal legs, but with intact and bearded faces, with Humphrey's face being slightly more decayed than Noon's. They had received blows to the head, the shape indicating perhaps a hatchet, and their bodies had noticeable broken bones. Shannon Bell lay with largely skeletal legs splayed and arms to his sides that were crudely cut to their bones leading to hands that were still fully skinned. His remaining corpse was a putrid mass of viscera encased in an almost wholly flayed torso, which led to an almost still-living face, complete with a thick red beard and bushy hair. The lack of noticeable decay in his face suggested that he had been the last to die. The top of Bell's skull had been ripped open and his brains were lying on the ground beneath him. The three men whose bodies were still intact or partly intact, had flesh and muscle excised from choice and meaty locations: no attempt had been made to consume bone marrow or any organs at all.