"Cave Mountain" links lost girl to a '70s cult killing in Arkansas

A quarter-century after 6-year-old Haley Zega vanished in the Ozarks, her cousin revisits the story in a new book that connects the disappearance to a 1978 murder.

The big picture: Part folksy family tale, part journalistic deep dive and part ghost story, "Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks" by Benjamin Hale was released last week.

• The narrative, set in Arkansas' vast natural beauty, could draw renewed national interest in Zega's odyssey and a cult murder few living here now know about.

Driving the news: Beginning at 6pm Tuesday, Hale will read from his book at the Fayetteville Public Library, followed by a Q&A. Zega will be present to talk about her experience.

• Hale had the support and permission of Zega and the family to write the book.

Flashback: In April 2001, Zega went hiking on the Hawksbill Crag trail with her grandparents. She became separated, left the trail and wandered the Upper Buffalo Wilderness for three days.

• She climbed down into the valley, while hundreds of people looked near the trail above.

State of play: In the days after her rescue, Haley told her parents about an "imaginary friend" named Alicia — a girl with long dark hair in pigtails, a red shirt, purple pants and white sneakers who had stayed with her in the woods.

• "This just kind of made her parents' hair stand on end," Hale told Axios.

The intrigue: Months later, family friend and photographer Tim Ernst recalled that a 3-year-old girl had been murdered and buried in the same stretch of forest, Hale said.

• As he dug into the 1978 case, Hale discovered that the murdered girl's mother, who was a member of a small religious cult and one of four convicted in the killing, had eventually formed an unlikely friendship with Haley's grandmother in the 2000s.
• The woman, who was paroled after 40 years, wrote in an email to the grandmother: "Maybe Bethany [pseudonym] had to die in order to save Haley, and Haley had to live in order to save me in some sort of way."

The bottom line: The author says he once told the story as a ghost tale. Writing the book revealed something deeper.

💭 Worth's thought bubble: I've not yet finished "Cave Mountain," but am enjoying Hale's narrative and reading about people and places I know.