Still a Mystery

For Jeff to get into a position where he was fearful,

there would have to be something very serious.

How did a simple hunting expedition

turn into something so tragic and violent?

The person that killed him knew him.

Isn't that right?

I don't understand why he waited that late to call.

That's concerning to me.

Like Jeff stumbled upon

something somebody had going on in the woods.

This case has been a riddle from the onset.

It was horrible.

I was so scared for Marshal.

Every kind of scenario that we think about,

it all comes back to the truck

and the chaos that was there.

You can't plug this area into a GPS.

It would have to be somebody with local knowledge.

It's crazy to our family because all the signs,

especially the truck in itself,

are pointing to something serious.

September 23, 2012, in the remote wilderness of Wilkes County, Georgia,

a young man turns up dead on a hunting trip

and his devastated family is left with many questions,

but no answers.

The officer was just beating around the bush about it.

And I said, "Tell us what has happened."

And then he told us that Jeff was gone.

It's a day that I will never forget.

I remember screaming out on the phone

and I just started bawling, crying, screaming.

35-year-old Jeff Gebhardt is known for his kind spirit

and love of the outdoors.

We had a great childhood together.

We were best friends.

We played all kinds of sports together.

Baseball, football.

Jeff was a very friendly person.

He liked to talk with people.

He was just an outgoing person.

Pooh Bear was his nickname,

and he was my Pooh.

I always told him he was my baby.

In 2012, Jeff is living with his parents

in the small town of Blairsville, Georgia,

working as a butcher at a local meatpacking plant

and studying computer science.

Jeffrey and I were very close and we used to always have,

you know, talks in the evening,

and he told me that he was the happiest he had been

since he had moved back home.

I think he had found his place.

In late September 2012,

Jeff is invited to go on a hunting trip

with his friend David Smith,

a former coworker at the meatpacking plant.

They had planned to go catching alligators to begin with,

but that didn't work out

so they went on this trip of hunting deer.

Jeff was an avid hunter. He enjoyed it.

I think he enjoyed it more for the brotherhood

or the communal part of it.

September 21st,

a day after arriving at the Clarks Hill Wildlife Area,

the two men head into the woods in search of deer.

They split up to hunt in different places,

but plan to reconnect at dark.

As the sun sets, Jeff gets lost

and he calls David for help.

Jeffrey called and said that he couldn't find the campsite,

and David asked him to shoot his weapon.

So he did one shot...

David did hear the shot,

but some other hunters were driving by.

They picked him up and then dropped him back off

close to the campsite.

The next day, September 22nd, around 4:00 p.m.,

Jeff and David make their way back into the forest.

And once again the end up kind of splitting up,

going their separate ways.

And I texted with Jeff and he said they still hadn't seen any deer,

and they were just gonna hunt on the other side of the road that evening.

It's the last text Jason will ever receive from his brother.

As darkness begins to fall,

Jeff gets turn around again

trying to make his way out of the woods.

From look at maps and the phone calls,

it looks like he walked the wrong way.

180 degrees towards the lake.

David's in his truck

giving some hunters a lift to their car

when he sees he has a voicemail from Jeff.

He plays it on speakerphone.

And according to this other hunter,

Jeffrey was speaking very loudly

like he was trying to shout to be heard.

Between 7:59 and 8:24 p.m.,

Jeff makes five calls to David.

He tells him he's lost and asks him to honk his horn.

Then Jeff fires his rifle into the air

like he did the night before

to try to help pinpoint his location.

Two shots ring out.

David heard the two shots

and those shots were witnessed by other hunters

who said that, yes, they also heard those shots.

David guesses Jeff is no more than 500 yards away.

For an experienced hunter like Jeff,

his loved ones say that's an easy walk in the woods.

For Jeff to get into a position

where he was fearful of something

or something was panicking him,

there would have to be something seriously happening.

I don't know what it would be

because I've never heard him get that way.

By 8:30 p.m., Jeff's phone calls stop.

David alerts other hunters that his friend is missing,

and drives his truck near where he knows Jeff enters the forest,

honking his horn.

But he stays inside his vehicle the whole time,

which later will puzzle Jeff's loved ones.

I don't know why David didn't pursue

and go into the woods to help find Jeff

if he was that close.

That's concerning to me.

At 10:24 p.m.,

two hours after he last hears from Jeff,

David calls 911.

By 11:00 p.m.,

two deputies from the Wilkes County sheriff's department

are on the scene.

At midnight a helicopter is called in,

armed with an infrared heat locating camera.

After two hours of searching,

they spot a human form in the area where Jeff is believed to be.

A search-and-rescue party races on foot to the location.

At 3:00 a.m., they make a grisly discovery.

Jeff Gebhardt is lying bloodied in the tall grass.

He's dead.

After Jeffrey's body has been located,

they see his body is laid on its back.

He has his hands up on his chest.

His ghillie suit is unzipped and his T-shirt is bloody.

The injuries that he had sustained

kind of defy all explanations,

and people are wondering at that point,

"How did a simple hunting expedition

turn into something so tragic and violent?"

Shockingly, Jeff has been viciously stabbed to death.

He had approximately 17 stab wounds to the chest

of varying depths.

He had an injury cut that was a jagged cut

to the webbing on the inside of his hand.

He had a small bruise depression on his head

and other various bruises on his legs

and some scrapes on either side of his neck.

When I found out that Jeff's cause of death was

multiple stab wounds to the chest,

I was expecting to hear

that they had somebody in custody immediately.

Police scramble to piece together what little they know

and immediately focus their attention

on Jeff's hunting partner David Smith.

He's first interviewed by deputies on the scene at 6:00 a.m.

David tells police

about his last hectic phone calls with Jeff.

Police photograph David's hands for any sign of a struggle,

and collect his belongings,

including a knife.

They get a warrant to search the camper

where David and Jeff are staying,

looking for any sign of foul play.

Later that day, deputies bring David into the station for further questioning,

and they leave little doubt

about what they think happened to Jeff Gebhardt.

What really happened in those remote woods?

The investigation is about to take a stunning turn.

I've been in the business 47 years

and this is the first time

I've ever seen anything like that.

A day after Jeff Gebhardt is found brutally stabbed to death,

an autopsy reveals three of the deepest knife wounds he sustained

penetrated his heart, killing him quickly.

With three knife wounds in the heart,

we're probably only talking minutes

to lose the amount of blood that he would have lost

and, of course, passing out from the wounds.

It's a brutal violent death.

Jeff's friend and hunting partner David Smith

is the last known person to see Jeff alive,

and investigators push him for answers.

Is it possible Jeff is the victim of a robbery gone wrong?

Investigators quickly rule out that theory

when they find all his belongings scattered near where he died,

including his rifle, backpack and wallet with money in it.

Jeff's loved ones are convinced

David Smith knows more than he's saying.

I said to him at the funeral,

I said, "David, I would like to sit down and talk to you

and just about how Jeff was, you know,