Girl Vanished in California — 6 Months Later She Was Found at the Bottom of Lake Tahoe

A Dream Hike Turns Into a Nightmare

On a sweltering August morning in 2016, 24-year-old Ella Patton was full of hope. She’d just finished a long shift at the Valley View Diner in Sacramento and was finally escaping to Desolation Wilderness—a place she’d described in her diary as “the silence where the asphalt ends.” Her best friend Sarah drove her to Glenn Alpine Trail Head near Lake Tahoe, dropped her off, and promised to return at 6 p.m. Ella, in her bright yellow windbreaker, waved goodbye and disappeared into the woods.

That was the last time anyone saw her alive.

A Vanishing Without a Trace

Ella’s last message, sent at 9:15 a.m. to her mother, was simple: “I’m on the route. The connection is about to go out. Sarah will pick me up at 6. Love you.” But when Sarah returned that evening, Ella was nowhere to be found. Hours passed. Calls went unanswered. The parking lot emptied. By nightfall, panic set in.

A massive search began—dogs, helicopters, volunteers combed the trails. The only clue was Ella’s yellow jacket, but not a single tourist saw her after she started her hike. The trail ran cold near some granite slabs, where the scent vanished in the summer heat. For two weeks, every inch of wilderness was searched. Nothing. Ella had vanished.

Six Months of Silence

Winter came. The case faded. Ella’s family clung to hope, but the official search was downgraded to “limited monitoring.” It seemed the wilderness had swallowed her whole.

A Chilling Discovery in the Depths

On February 14, 2017, a private sonar team scanning Lake Tahoe’s depths for research detected a strange signal—350 feet below the surface, a vertical shape hovered in the darkness. When they sent down a camera, what appeared on the screen stunned everyone: a human body, upright, swaying gently, with a heavy boulder tied to the ankles by thick yellow nylon rope. The clothes—hiking leggings, boots, and a faded yellow windbreaker—were eerily preserved in the icy water.

It was Ella Patton.

The Truth Emerges

The recovery was grueling: gale-force winds, freezing water, and near-zero visibility. But when Ella’s body was finally brought up, the details were unmistakable. Around her neck, tangled in her jacket, was a silver medallion—a gift from her grandmother, the final confirmation of her identity.

But the horror deepened with the autopsy. There were no signs of blunt trauma, no strangulation, no stab wounds. Ella’s lungs were filled with water and deep-water algae. She had drowned. The killer had tied her to a boulder, taken her out on a boat, and thrown her alive into the freezing abyss.

The knot on the rope was a professional double constrictor with a locking loop—something only a skilled rigger or sailor would know. The killer was not a random drifter, but someone with manual labor skills, someone who knew how to make sure a body would never surface.

The Hunt for a Killer

Detectives traced every marina on Lake Tahoe. Most were locked at night, but Silver Pine Marina had no cameras, no digital logs—only a night guard named Garrett Vance. Three days after Ella vanished, Vance quit abruptly, left his job, and disappeared.

Vance was a former construction foreman, expert in industrial rigging. The knot on Ella’s ankles matched the knots he used daily. When detectives searched his abandoned storage unit, they found a spool of the same yellow rope and dozens of items tied with the exact knot.

A Predator Caught By Chance

Vance had fled, living off the grid in his Dodge Ram pickup. Months passed until a traffic camera caught his license plate in Nevada. He was found in the desert town of Winnemucca, working as a laborer, hiding under the name “Johnson.”

When police burst into his motel room, Vance offered no resistance. He was tired, resigned, as if he’d been waiting for this moment.

A Cold Confession

In interrogation, Vance described the night of the murder with chilling detachment. He’d seen Ella walking alone, offered her a ride, then became aggressive. When she threatened to report him, he panicked—afraid of violating his parole. He knocked her unconscious, tied her to a boulder using his rigging skills, and dumped her alive into the lake.

Justice and Grief

At trial, the evidence was overwhelming: the rope, the knots, the confession. Vance was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Ella’s family and friends sat in silence. Her friend Sarah, wracked with guilt, testified about their last moments together. Detective Sorenson comforted her: “You couldn’t have known. He was a predator of opportunity.”

A Lasting Lesson

Today, Lake Tahoe remains beautiful, cold, and indifferent. Tourists take photos, boats skim the surface, and few think of the secrets hidden in the depths. Ella Patton was buried near her mother’s childhood home, her grave marked with yellow flowers.

Her story is now used to teach young detectives: Evil is often ordinary, opportunistic, not the work of masterminds but of cowards who value their freedom over another’s life.

Ella’s tragedy is a reminder: Stay vigilant, trust your instincts, and never underestimate the darkness that can hide beneath the surface.