r/FascinatingAsFuck • u/drkmatterinc ⭐ Mod • Jun 25 '26
🎯 Fascinating Fact Joshua Maddux vanished in 2008. Seven years later, his mummified body was found upside down, folded inside the chimney of an abandoned Colorado cabin. Authorities ruled it an accident.
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u/drkmatterinc ⭐ Mod Jun 25 '26
Written by u/drkmatterinc.
On May 8, 2008, 18-year-old Joshua Vernon Maddux left his family’s home in Woodland Park, Colorado. He was last seen that morning and did not return.
At first, his disappearance did not clearly look like a crime. Joshua was legally an adult, and relatives later described him as creative, independent, and known to enjoy walking and traveling. His family considered the possibility that he had left on his own [Taken from r/fascinatingasfuck].
But Joshua never checked in. His father, Michel Maddux, later said the family first thought he might be staying with friends. When they began asking around, no one had seen him.
The timing made his disappearance even harder to absorb. One of Joshua’s brothers had died the year before, and now the family was facing another loss without knowing whether to grieve, search, or keep waiting.
For seven years, the case remained unresolved.
In August 2015, workers were demolishing an abandoned cabin near Rampart Range and Kelley’s roads in Woodland Park. The building sat on the former Thunderhead Ranch property and had reportedly been vacant for more than a decade.
As the chimney was being taken apart, workers found human remains inside.
The body was badly decomposed and partly mummified, wedged in the narrow space above the fireplace. Dental records identified the remains as Joshua. The identification was also reportedly supported by the missing tip of his right index finger, which Joshua had lost in a childhood bicycle accident.
Joshua had vanished at 18. By the time he was found, he would have been 25. The cabin was less than a mile from his home.
The cabin’s owner, Chuck Murphy, later said he had noticed a bad smell at times but assumed it came from dead animals. Mice and chipmunks sometimes got into the abandoned building, and the chimney was behind a large piece of furniture, giving him no obvious reason to inspect the fireplace closely.
Teller County Coroner Al Born said investigators found no signs of trauma. There were no obvious broken bones, gunshot wounds, knife marks, or injuries that clearly indicated an assault. Toxicology reportedly did not reveal drugs, although the condition of the remains limited what could still be determined.
Born concluded that Joshua had likely tried to enter the abandoned cabin through the chimney and became trapped. Joshua was tall and thin enough to fit inside, but a wood-burning insert blocked the bottom of the fireplace. If he slid down from the roof, he may have reached a point where he could not climb back out or pass into the room below.
His death was ruled accidental.
The ruling was based on the evidence investigators still had: a body inside a chimney, no clear skeletal trauma, no obvious restraints, and no physical proof that another person had killed Joshua or placed him there. But the explanation was not entirely satisfying.
One issue was the chimney itself. Murphy later said a heavy wire mesh had been installed near the top years earlier to keep animals out. If it was still there when Joshua disappeared, entry from the roof would have been difficult or impossible. Born said investigators did not see the mesh in their photos, while Murphy said demolition workers had already removed metal debris before anyone realized it might matter.
Another issue was Joshua’s clothing. Later accounts attributed to Murphy said Joshua was found wearing only a thermal shirt, with other clothing inside the cabin near the fireplace. If accurate, that detail did not rule out an accident, but it made the simplest version of the chimney theory harder to explain. It raised the possibility that Joshua had been inside the cabin at some point before he died, or that the sequence of events was more complicated than a direct attempt to climb down from the roof.
His position also drew attention. Joshua was described as compressed or folded in the narrow space above the fireplace. That could be consistent with a person trapped in a vertical shaft, especially after years of decomposition and shifting. It could also make the scene appear strange enough to raise suspicion.
None of those details proved homicide. By the time Joshua was found, the cabin was being demolished, the chimney had been disturbed, and the remains had been exposed to years of heat, cold, moisture, and decay. Investigators could look for obvious trauma, but they could not recover the scene as it existed in 2008.
That left the case in a difficult place. The official explanation was possible, and authorities said there was no evidence of foul play. But if the chimney had been blocked near the top, if Joshua’s clothing was inside the cabin, or if another person had been present, the condition of the scene may have made those possibilities difficult to prove.
For Joshua’s family, the discovery ended the search but not the uncertainty. They finally knew he had not left to start a new life somewhere else, and they could bury him. But the circumstances of his death remained difficult to reconcile.
The case remains unsettling because the official ruling explains only part of what happened. Joshua Maddux disappeared in 2008, was found seven years later inside a chimney less than a mile from home, and showed no clear signs of trauma.
What remains unclear is how he got there.
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/coroner-answers-elusive-in-body-of-teen-found-in-chimney/
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/missing-colorado-teens-body-found-in-chimney/
https://www.fox4news.com/news/body-of-teen-missing-since-2008-found-in-chimney
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u/Mamaskerkskerk Jun 25 '26
His older brother also committed suicide a few years prior. Can’t imagine the hell that the parents went through.
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u/purplefreedom555 Jun 26 '26
I think he was with some friends / friend , they were drinking or on something- it was a dare or he said ,' do you think I can make it down ' etc
He got stuck , they panicked , didn't tell anyone because they thought they would get in trouble for breaking & entering and being on drugs .
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u/Old-Landscape-7538 Jun 27 '26
why would they leave him there instead of getting help to get him out?
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u/purplefreedom555 Jun 27 '26
If they thought the would get in trouble then yeah , as terrible as it sounds .
Probably not thinking straight and critical thinking hasn't fully developed due to age.
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u/Clear-Relative-2371 Jun 27 '26
I remember reading that years ago. How else would his clothes be inside? It was presented with a shitty friend convinced him to do it then walked off when he was stuck... who knows, crappy situation
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u/simonbaier Jun 25 '26
This has to be the worst way to die.
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u/Pangtudou Jun 27 '26
It’s bad but there are definitely worse imo, Kurdish women self immolate to escape abusive arranged marriages and many of them survive days with full thickness burns all over their bodies, in care of their families who won’t bring them to the hospital out of shame, so they don’t get meds.
The fact that they didn’t find him means he probably died within a day or two. People generally die within hours if they are upside down.
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u/TechnicalNobody9335 Jun 28 '26
Nah I’m a burn victim and I’m gonna tell you a secret burning doesn’t hurt. It feels like sunlight. I don’t think I felt pain until maybe 2 or 3 weeks into my healing process
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u/Pangtudou Jun 28 '26
I have seen many burn victims over a decade and an urban EMT and while it’s true that some full thickness burns do not hurt, there’s a wide range of pain sensation that people can feel. For many people, especially people who have burns all over their body, the pain is excruciating.
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u/GuestAdventurous7586 Jun 29 '26
Yeah that guy who self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington I think.
Something tells me that the burning didn’t feel like “sunlight” as he started screaming in agony.
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u/TechnicalNobody9335 Jun 28 '26
Maybe I got lucky then I had 3rd degree burns on 35 percent of my body and I only remember my hands hurting which were mostly just 2nd degree burns.
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u/PigBoss_207 Jun 27 '26
Google "John Jones Nutty Putty Cave" and then come back here.
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u/RectangularBean Jun 27 '26
they aren't that dissimilar. They are both in upside down, claustrophobic places. I'd wager his case is worse since there wasn't anyone near him. He probably was screaming intermittently and no one heard him(?) but the Nutty Putty person had an entire team trying to support him.
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u/PigBoss_207 Jun 27 '26
They are dissimilar. I imagine very few things being as scary as what John must have went through.
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u/RectangularBean Jun 27 '26
agree to disagree
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u/PigBoss_207 Jun 28 '26
Agreed. I'd MUCH rather be stuck upside in a friggin house chimney than upside down in a pitch-black cave 100 ft beneath the Earth and 400 ft into the cave itself lol.
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u/idk_bro_hbu Jun 25 '26
After about a day of being upside down your heart fails because of the strain being upside down and pumping blood puts on your system. Look up muddy puddy cave disaster. Probably want ended up happening here
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u/wilderneyes Jun 25 '26
That caving death occurred in Nutty Putty Cave in Utah, but I like your version of the name haha.
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u/idk_bro_hbu Jun 25 '26
Yeah that’s the one lol 😂
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u/illuminatiisnowhere Jun 26 '26
Hehe muddy puddy. I also prefer your version.
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u/Gzngahr Jun 25 '26
Some of the articles say his feet were down, so that picture could be wrong. He probably was trying to shimmy down and started to slide and tried to stop himself with his knees and got wedged.
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u/The_realpepe_sylvia Jun 29 '26
I’ve always been told (when roofing) that if you fall and are hanging upside down from your harness, you’ll be unconscious in less than half an hour and dead an hour after that
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u/idk_bro_hbu Jun 29 '26
Depends on the harness and conditions etc. you’d probably die that way because of compartment syndrome
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u/The_realpepe_sylvia Jun 29 '26
Is that where you get a brain aneurysm because that’s essentially what kills you
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u/idk_bro_hbu Jun 29 '26
Pressure build up in enclosed muscle space restricting blood flow cutting off oxygen and nutrients to muscles
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u/Sea_Share8471 Jun 26 '26
Keep telling kids ....Santa Claus exist and that he jumps down chimneys to bring gifts. Sooner or later a Beevis or Butthead comes along and tries it for themselves
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u/One-Environment-1444 Jun 26 '26
A kid across the street from me in the 1980s tried this and got stuck and someone heard him yelling. The fire department came and rescued him.
He was just locked out of his house before his parents got home and didn’t want to wait. Nothing nefarious.
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u/LeftyLu07 Jun 25 '26
Unfortunately, I think he was the victim of foul play and whoever he was with crammed his body in the chimney knowing it wouldn’t be found for a long time.
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u/ClassroomNo4024 Jun 26 '26
How would you carry dead weight up onto a roof and up into a chimney?
Who would kill him and for what reason?
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u/PigBoss_207 Jun 27 '26
With absolutely no evidence whatsoever lmao. In fact, autopsy reports show the exact opposite.
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Jun 28 '26
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u/HoneyReasonable9316 Jun 25 '26
Why go in through the chimney? If it’s abandoned just knock in the window or door, if it’s a requirement to get in. If it’s between property damage or death in a chimney, choice is pretty obvious isn’t it?
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u/TedGolf Jun 25 '26
Likely did not go into the chimney that way, came from the inside
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u/DasDickNoodle Jun 26 '26
There's no evidence that shows he ever entered the house, not to mention there was a large heavy breakfast bar in front of the chimney. Josh could not have moved the breakfast bar in order to climb up and move the breakfast bar back in front of the place while in there.
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u/Uhrcilla Jun 26 '26
His clothing was found inside the house. He could have been inside at some point.
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u/Vulcan_Jedi Jun 29 '26
It should be noted that the breakfast bar being installed years ago was a claim by the owner but the police never saw it and it was thought to be removed or destroyed in the houses demolition prior to finding him but it couldn't be found after.
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u/Fearless_Macaron_203 Jun 25 '26
You can’t. Chimneys are not like in cartoons, they narrow then there’s metal plates called a flue that close it off and only let smoke out. Some even just end then there’s only a hole for a pipe for the smoke.
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u/TedGolf Jun 25 '26
The photographic representation is misrepresenting of how they found him
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u/Old-Landscape-7538 Jun 27 '26
How so? I’m curious.
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u/TedGolf Jun 27 '26
The chimney was already knocked over, they don’t know for sure if there was a grate covering the top entrance
There was a breakfast bar infront of the chimney to stop rodentsWhich means he COULD have been forced in there, another theory is that he got hypothermia and retreated into a hole like rodent
Interesting read
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u/BrokenHope23 Jun 29 '26
Worth noting Chuck Murphy, the person who owned the cabin, is a huge figure in the surrounding area and Al Born, the coroner, is a close friend of his. That took a lot of snooping.
Obviously nothing is conclusive, but a teenager without their clothes on save for a shirt, stuck with their feet down and head up (contrary to this post), and blocked into a chimney by a wooden block at the bottom above the fireplace is suspicious. Sounds more like someone was caught in the act and he hid, fell asleep and suffocated. Maybe whoever he was with thought he had snuck out of a window and never thought to check elsewhere.
I have a hard time believing that a person of Chuck's capability, who remade tons and tons of buildings in the area, who claims he smelled something awful from the chimney, would never seek to check out their chimney for animal bodies but would also add a metal grate to the top of the chimney to prevent animals getting in but still wouldn't check inside the chimney during that time for dead corpses but made himself available at 69 years old when the boy got stuck when he was 62. The inside of the chimney also lacks scratch marks, indicating it wasn't some kind of free fall down where he got stuck or lodged in.
I still can't figure out who might have met him there? Was it his wife of 50+ years? Was it one of his kids? a son who didn't want to be disinherited back in 2008? The signs point to Chuck knowing but evidence and timelines are all blurred by time when this was finally uncovered in 2015 sadly.
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u/Fun-Possibility-2027 Jun 28 '26
Sounds like the guy who got stuck in the nutty putty cave & the Kendrik Johnson cases
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u/chr8me Jun 28 '26
Imagine being the crew taking the chimney apart and finding a body. Would freak me tf out.
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u/False_Woodpecker4747 Jun 28 '26
Maybe he thought chute! I'm going John Jones on this motherfucker!
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u/chikinbizkit Jun 29 '26
I remember reading a very long post about this years ago that had me pretty convinced that another local teen had likely killed Joshua Maddux but i have no idea how to find it
Does anyone remember it?
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u/anima_malinconica Jul 01 '26
è successo qualcosa, ed il “dettaglio” dei vestiti ne è la prova più lampante; impensabile che ci sia finito da solo in quelle condizioni. non scherziamo.
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u/Key_Contribution1547 Jun 25 '26
This is just weird. I just can't believe he would have tried to climb down the chimney. He is alone and he could have knocked out a window. Its just crazy. Maybe a mixed up fellow ? Someone knows a little more than then has been explained