The mystery at Pictured Rocks

Josh Mankiewicz Correspondent • Profile

McBAIN, MICH. - It’s so quiet on these cliffs that sometimes, all you can hear is the wind.

Lindsey Richardson: It was special to them, that's where they went when they first got married.

It's a beautiful place, a lonely place.

Don Culver: She's not gonna get close enough to the edge of a cliff. She didn't like heights.

And if you listen to that wind, you'll hear a story.

Jeanette Ellens: When I was up there and I just sat right down. And the wind was just blowing in my face, and I just thought, "This is so Juanita."

It's a story that begins more than two hundred miles away from those windswept cliffs in McBain, Michigan, a farming town with just one traffic light.

Here Tom and Juanita Richardson were living the midwestern edition of the American dream in a modern-day log home Tom had built for his wife and their three kids, Laceine, Lindsey, and Levi.

Lindsey Richardson: He was a man of integrity. He worked long hours and hard hours for our family.

Tom made a solid living driving a truck for FedEx; Juanita was a secretary at their local school. He taught youth group at their church and she sang in the choir.

Laceine Richardson: She knew how to be a great mom, but still be able to have a friendship with us.

Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline NBC: How'd your parents get along?

Lindsay Richardson: Great.

Josh Mankiewicz: They didn't argue?

Lindsay Richardson: I think every couple argues, they weren't perfect. But they loved each other.

Josh Mankiewicz: That sounds to me like a good marriage.

Lindsay Richardson: It was a great marriage.

It was a happy 23-year marriage that was now entering a new phase. As Levi graduated high school, mom and dad had an empty nest. At last they could now take a long-deserved vacation. Tom called it a "second honeymoon." Just the two of them -- up here, way up here, to Michigan’s upper peninsula, or as locals call it: The "U.P."

Lindsey Richardson: She was really excited to go up there and spend time with my dad.

Their destination was Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, 40 miles of craggy shoreline along Lake Superior, the largest, deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes. The park is a backpacker's paradise.

Lindsey Richardson: They both loved the outdoors. Loved to get away and discover new things.

And they'd discover something new each time they came to Pictured Rocks, where the pictures are stunning, but the rocks can be treacherous.

It was a cloudy, misty morning on June 22, the fourth day of their vacation. Juanita and Tom were out hiking. She was taking pictures of sights along the trail.

At about 10:30, Tom and Juanita arrived here. They called it their "honeymoon spot" - a place they'd visited not long after they were married some 23 years earlier. They stopped for some snacks and to rest their tired feet. What happened next is where the mystery begins.

Evidence photo Tom Richardson at the "honeymoon spot."

At 10:55, Juanita snapped this photo of Tom sitting on a grassy patch along this cliff, right at their special spot.

Then Tom left her and hiked to the bathroom at the visitor’s center.

When he got back, Juanita was gone. He ran for help.

Jim Northup: His initial report was that she was essentially missing and unaccounted for.

Jim Northup is the superintendent in charge of Pictured Rocks.

Jim Northup: He didn't know if she'd fallen off the cliff, if she'd gone for a walk, if she'd been abducted or maybe attacked by a bear.

But within 45 minutes, park rangers found Juanita Richardson.

Josh Mankiewicz: What'd you find at the scene?

Jim Northup: Mrs. Richardson's body was in plain view at the bottom of the cliff.

Juanita fell 140 feet from right here -- it's the equivalent of falling off a 14-story building. And at impact her body was going 45 miles an hour. By the time rescuers found her body on the lakeshore below, she was dead.

Lindsey Richardson: The pastor of our church called me and told me of the news.

Josh Mankiewicz: And said what?

Lindsay Richardson: It was such a blur, I can't remember much. But that there'd been an accident and my mom didn't make it. (crying) I think he said that she had fallen off of a cliff.

Their dad later called them in tears.

Lindsey Richardson: Hello?

Tom Richardson: Hi, Girl Wonder...

Lindsey Richardson: Hi Daddy.

Tom Richardson: How ya doin'?

Lindsey Richardson: Ok, how are you?

Tom Richardson: I'm a mess.

Lindsey Richardson: Are you coming home?

Tom Richardson: Yeah I'll be headed out as soon as I can get on the road.

Tom made the four-hour drive home to McBain, where the Richardson kids comforted him and each other through the memorial service for their mom.

Levi Richardson: He looked like a broken man. He was trying to hold himself together, but couldn't do it.

Tom Richardson had just lost his wife.

But this tragedy wasn't over. He was about to lose a lot more.

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