Shepherds Way that runs along the western
boundary of Bill O’Bryan’s estate—about a
half-mile from where Haas’ skeleton was
found and on the other side of the prop-
erty’s soybean field. Among them was an
elderly woman who said she’d been star-
tled one mid-September morning to see
a disheveled man in her wooded back-
yard. He was furtively peeking out from
behind a tree but soon melted back into
the mosquito-infested forest, where only
well-equipped outdoorsmen usually dare
to tread.
Two more sightings came from a man
and his father-in-law, who said they’d seen
someone fitting Haas’ description walk-
ing along the shoulder of State Route 22
in early September, possibly with a bed-
cord running from high up on its trunk to
an anchor in the ground, and someone had
draped a tarp over the taut line to form a
basic shelter. Close by was some burnt
wood, arranged in the criss-cross pattern
of a campfire.
This makeshift campsite was near a
ravine with a small creek at its bottom,
an offshoot of a larger stream to the south
called Todd Fork. Two detectives hiked
down the gorge and waded through the
mucky water, which was then only a few
inches deep. They soon encountered a
mound of mud-caked leaves and bro-
ken branches. On top of the pile rested a
zipped-up black backpack.
When they picked up the pack, they
could see it was soaked through and cov-
ered with debris. Inside was Haas’ ruined
computer hardware, as well as an assort-
ment of less sophisticated items: seven light-
ers, a canister of pepper spray, electrical
tape, blue work gloves, a Nissan hood orna-
ment, a copy of the New Testament, three
unwrapped Magnum condoms, and an ear
of unshucked corn that bore char marks
from roasting.
A new and convincing theory of Haas’
demise now came into focus, one that had
nothing to do with foul play. It was clear that
Haas’ mental health had frayed as he strug-
gled to launch Tessr, a venture on which he’d
pinned his hopes for personal redemption.
The closer he’d gotten to success, the more
anxious he’d grown at the prospect of being
absorbed into the conventional world he’d
long rejected. Haas had a history of deal-
ing with such inner turmoil by running off:
He’d gone to Florida to become a vagrant
after dropping out of college, and he’d fled
into the mountains of southeast Ohio while
grappling with the realization that he’d
squandered years on drugs. That walkabout
yielded a spiritual insight that had renewed
his sense of purpose.
So as he smoked outside the BP station
on August 31, it seems entirely in character
that Haas might have made an abrupt deci-
sion to bail on the high-pressure life he’d
built in Columbus. All of us have probably
daydreamed about taking a step or two back
from the exhausting din of technology. But
the overwhelmed Haas took that common
fantasy of simplicity and molded it into some-
thing far more frightening and pure: He chose
to abandon all community and comfort toroll slung beneath his backpack. They had
thought it odd that anyone would be walking
in the late-summer heat, let alone dressed
in heavy black pants. The father-in-law
added that a friend of his, an ardent hunter,
had placed a deer feeder in the area behind
Shepherds Way, and he’d been surprised to
discover that someone had been using the
barrel-shaped contraption as a crude stove.
In light of what they’d learned from
Clarksville locals, the Warren County
Sheriff’s Office sent out a team of seven
officers on November 21 to comb the thick
woods that lie between the soybean field
and Shepherds Way.
They made their first crucial discovery
in a clearing covered with autumn leaves.
A thin tree along the clearing’s edge had aHaas vanished from this Clinton County, Ohio, gas station while a friend was buying snacks.