Originally, after the fatal soot-out with Oros at Teslin Lake, I had no intention of writing this book. In fact, when Garry Rodgers and I sat in the Dkeena Pub after he got back and discussed the details of his experience, the very idea that someone might write the story - glorifying Oros, sensationalizing the murders and trivializing Mike Buday's death - was repugnant.
Only those of us on the inside knew the whole picture. It was our case. Our special problem. No outsider would ever have access to the real story. The whole truth. The police investigation which commenced in Atlin on September 10, 1981, when Weibe reported that Gunter Lishy had dissappeared at Hutsigola Lake, grew from there, ultimately to span years and continents. The investigation even reached into the files of the FBI and Interpol, and tracked down witnesses and information no one else would ever find.
An outsider writing the story would have access to only the smallest part of the truth. But rumors were fierce; that Oros was a devil-worshipper and a cannibal, that he ran wild with a dog pack, naked but for animal skins, that he howled at the moon and ate raw flesh. Whatever was lacking could be filled in with imagination.
However, the private journals which he maintained faithfully from his early commune days in Taos, New Mexico, until his own violent death, chronicle a bizarre and frightening spiral into increasing madness.
The brave men who flew up to Teslin to confront Oros in his own territory are owed our gratitude. They were nearly all killed.
Later, when the events at Teslin Lake received international attention and we realized the story would inevitably be told - one way or another - I undertook to write it - as an insider.
Initially the idea was simply to report the truth to prevent a fictional account from filling that space. However, the more I became involved in the case, absorbing the details, the more I found myself drawn into it.
In the end I wrote the story because it deserves to be told. |
