Missing teen found trapped inside chimney after 7-year search

The Unsolved Mystery of Joshua Maddux: The Boy Found in the Chimney

On a cool spring morning in 2008, 18-year-old Joshua Maddux left his family home in Woodland Park, Colorado, for a walk — and vanished without a trace. He was the kind of teenager who loved being outdoors, known around town for his easy smile and creative streak. No one could have imagined that seven years later, his mummified body would be found trapped inside a chimney less than a mile from where he lived.

The case has puzzled investigators for years, haunted by one agonizing question: how did Joshua end up there?

A Young Life Full of Promise

Joshua was a dreamer — a talented writer, a musician, and a boy with a soul that leaned toward adventure. He lived with his father, Mike Maddux, and two sisters, Kate and Ruth. Life had already tested the family’s resilience. Just two years earlier, Joshua’s older brother, Zachary, had taken his own life, a tragedy that left an unhealable scar on them all.

Despite the loss, friends and family remembered Josh as gentle and optimistic, someone who saw beauty in the smallest things. He was the type of person who would stop mid-hike just to listen to the wind in the trees or help a stray animal find its way home. He wasn’t the kind of kid to simply disappear.

On May 8, 2008, Josh told his sister he was heading out for a walk. He slipped on a light shirt, jeans, and sneakers and left the house as he often did. It was the last time anyone saw him alive.

The Search That Went Nowhere

When Joshua didn’t return that night, his father assumed he’d stayed with friends or lost track of time exploring the woods. But as the hours turned into days, that hope faded. After five days, Mike filed a missing person report. Police, family, and volunteers scoured the forest and the surrounding area. They posted flyers, interviewed classmates, and searched the nearby trails Josh loved so much. Nothing.

Weeks became months. The Maddux family was left living in limbo — trapped between hope and grief. Every ring of the phone, every knock on the door felt like it could be news. But it never was.

Over time, the search quieted. The community moved on. The Maddux family did not. Kate often imagined her brother somewhere far away, playing guitar in a mountain town or writing in a cabin by the sea. “He always talked about wanting to see the world,” she once said. “Part of me wanted to believe he just… left to start over.”

But deep down, they all knew something didn’t add up. Joshua was responsible, close to his family, and deeply rooted in his small town. He wouldn’t have simply vanished without a word.

A Gruesome Discovery

Seven years later, in August 2015, construction crews began demolishing an old log cabin on Meadowlark Lane — a long-abandoned property less than a mile from the Maddux home. It had been boarded up for years, slowly decaying among the pines. When workers began dismantling the chimney, they noticed something wedged inside.

At first, they thought it was debris. Then someone saw what looked like a human hand.

Inside the narrow brick shaft, curled in a fetal position, was the body of a young man. His remains were so well-preserved by the cold and dry mountain air that dental records easily confirmed his identity. It was Joshua Maddux.

His father got the call no parent should ever have to receive. “I about had a heart attack,” Mike said. “All those years of not knowing — and he was right there, just down the road.”

The Impossible Scene

The discovery only deepened the mystery. Joshua’s body was found wearing a thin thermal shirt, but his pants, socks, and shoes were neatly folded inside the cabin, close to the fireplace. A heavy wooden breakfast bar had been dragged across the hearth from the inside, blocking access to the chimney.

It didn’t make sense. How could Joshua have entered the chimney if it was sealed from the inside?

Teller County Coroner Al Born conducted the autopsy. There were no broken bones, no stab wounds, no signs of blunt trauma. Toxicology reports came back clean — no drugs, no alcohol. Born’s initial conclusion: accidental death. He theorized that Joshua had tried to climb down the chimney, gotten stuck, and succumbed to hypothermia as the mountain temperatures plunged that night.

But the explanation felt too simple. Too convenient.

Doubts and Discrepancies

Chuck Murphy, the cabin’s owner, had his doubts from the start. “There’s no way he climbed in that chimney,” Murphy said flatly. “I’d covered the top with thick steel mesh twenty years earlier to keep animals out. You couldn’t get through it unless you tore it apart — and it was still intact.”

Murphy also revealed that over the years, he had occasionally checked on the cabin. Once, he noticed a terrible smell but assumed it was a dead raccoon. “It’s a real horror to think it was him,” he said quietly. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Faced with the conflicting evidence, Born reopened the investigation. He acknowledged that Joshua’s position — head-first and tightly wedged — made voluntary entry unlikely. “This one really taxed our brains,” Born admitted. “We don’t know why he took off his clothes, climbed up there, and went down the chimney. It doesn’t follow any rational pattern.”

He changed the cause of death from “accidental” to “undetermined,” leaving open the possibility of foul play.

Theories and Rumors

As word of the strange case spread, so did the rumors. Some claimed Joshua had been running from someone. Others whispered that a local man with a violent record — later imprisoned for an unrelated killing — had once boasted about “putting a guy in a hole.”

Police investigated but couldn’t corroborate the claims. There was no forensic evidence linking anyone to the scene, and no witnesses who saw Joshua enter the cabin. The theory that he might have sought shelter there during a cold night also didn’t fit. If he wanted warmth, why would he climb into a chimney with no way out?

Every angle led to another dead end.

A Family Without Answers
For the Maddux family, the discovery brought relief and anguish in equal measure. They finally had Joshua home, but not the truth. The case remains unsolved, the details caught between logic and nightmare.

His sister Kate once said, “I used to picture him somewhere free, living the life he wanted. Now I picture him alone in that chimney, and I can’t understand why. None of it makes sense.”

The old cabin is gone now, replaced by new homes. Life in Woodland Park has moved on, but for those who knew Joshua, the memory lingers. His story has become one of Colorado’s most haunting mysteries — a reminder of how answers can hide in plain sight, just out of reach.

The Questions That Won’t Go Away

Why were his clothes folded neatly nearby? Who moved the heavy bar to block the fireplace? Why was there no sign of struggle or forced entry?

Each question adds weight to the sense that Joshua’s death wasn’t a tragic accident — it was something darker, stranger, and still unexplained.

Teller County authorities maintain the case is open. They still receive occasional tips, though none have led to a breakthrough. Officially, Joshua’s cause of death remains “undetermined.”

Unsolved. Unexplained. Unbelievable.

And yet, somewhere between the facts and the fear, one thing remains certain — a young man full of hope and life left home for a walk one May morning, and somehow, in a small Colorado town, ended up trapped in a chimney less than a mile away.

No one heard him. No one saw him. And no one, even now, can say why.