In April 1913, two unidentified men stood rigid on either side of a lifeless body, facing the camera as if to certify that something unbelievable had finally come to an end.

Between them lay John Tornow — a man the newspapers had transformed into a monster, a myth, a cautionary tale whispered to children once the sun went down.

For more than a year, he had terrorized Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

Before the fear, before the headlines, Tornow was simply a solitary figure living deep in the wilderness of the Wynoochee Valley in southern Grays Harbor County. He kept away from towns and avoided human contact, surviving among towering evergreens and mist-filled ravines. Some who knew of him called him a hermit. Others described him as quiet. Odd. Harmless.

Then everything shifted.

In late 1911, two teenage boys entered the forest and never returned alive. Their deaths shattered any illusion of harmless isolation. Tornow disappeared further into the wild, retreating into dense timber where even seasoned loggers ...