Middle Mountain

Dylan Redwine was 13 and living with his mother in Monument, Colorado, when a court ordered him to spend Thanksgiving week of 2012 with his father. Mark Redwine lived alone off County Road 500 near Vallecito Reservoir, in the mountains northeast of Durango. Dylan flew in on November 18. His father did not call police until the next evening, about twenty hours after the boy’s last message.

Searchers worked the mountain for months. In June 2013 they found bones, a shoe and scraps of Dylan’s clothing above Middle Mountain Road. His skull was not found until November 2015, in a meadow about five miles from the rest of the remains. Investigators had already recovered blood from the living room of the house, and a DNA analyst later testified that at least one sample was consistent with Dylan. Prosecutors argued the boy had found embarrassing photographs of his father.

A grand jury indicted Mark Redwine in July 2017. The case was delayed repeatedly and reached a jury in June 2021. On July 16, 2021, he was convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. Judge Jeffrey Wilson imposed the maximum on October 8, 2021, 48 years on both counts running together. Redwine filed notice of appeal the following month.