Flashback Friday this week was a case from Idaho; here’s another one. Gypsy T., an old friend of Christopher Lyn Holverson, asked me to run his case for Select It Sunday. The circumstances of his disappearance appear straightforward enough: in 1998, Christopher went camping in Madison County with a group of friends, and one night he just left the campsite and never came back. That night it was sleeting and there was snow on the ground. This looks like a case of “got lost and died of exposure” but Gypsy isn’t sure of that and she told me why in the emails she sent me.
With permission, I am sharing some parts of Gypsy’s emails to me, slightly edited for spelling and clarity etc.:
When I was a child I had a friend named Christopher Holverson. We met through his little brother. Chris and I were more the same age and we hit it off. We hung out and chatted on the phone. Later we found out we were distant cousins. Well, as time passed we drifted apart. We would chat occasionally but not much else.
Well, one day in 1998 or 1999 I was watching the news and found out Chris was missing. While camping with friends he had left the tent and never returned. After learning this I became interested in missing person cases. While I am interested in all missing person cases, Chris fascinates me the most of course. The sad part is, Chris is almost one of those forgotten missing persons cases.
Our hometown newspaper did a feature of him a while back, but before that, I could hardly find anything about the case. There was even a time when I couldn’t find a picture. Many people think that he got lost while camping, which I find strange. The place he was camping is pretty popular and not very isolated. He left the tent in the middle of the night. When camping usually you only leave the tent in the middle of the night to urinate. You wouldn’t go far for that. So if he wasn’t far how did he get lost? The area where he was camping is not known for bears or other wildlife dangers. Not saying it didn’t happen, but it’s not likely. My best guess is he was harmed by someone. I don’t know the people he was camping with so I am mot blaming them, but there were other people up there too. Or maybe slim possibility, he decided to make a new life for himself.
When describing her friendship with Chris and what he was like, Gypsy says he was a very kind person and a good friend:
I have a skin disorder, psoriasis. I was teased horribly as a child. In fact, that is one of the reasons Chris’s case is so hard on me. He met me as a preteen and saw my psoriasis and didn’t care. He was one of the first people that didn’t care. He helped me see myself as a worthy whole human that was beautiful. He made a major impact on my early teen years.
Christopher was eighteen when he disappeared. If he’s still alive, he would be 37 today.
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