In April 2001, 6-year-old Haley Zega wandered away from her grandparents during a hike in the rugged Newton County Wilderness and became lost. The ensuing rescue operation unfolded over about 72 hours on local and national television. Haley was found safe by two Newton County natives, Little James and William Jeff Villines. An account of that incident, 25 years ago, is covered in Benjamin Hale's new book, Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks. Hale is Haley's cousin and first cousin of Haley's mother, Kelly. He'll discuss the book at the Fayetteville Public Library on Tuesday, March 10. But there is more Ozarks history in this book than Haley's rescue — that of a late-1970s cult in Northwest Arkansas and a 3-year-old girl murdered by members of that cult.
It's two stories, but in a way, also one story. The confluence began shortly after Haley's rescue, when she and her parents were driving to St. Louis for a family getaway.
"On the drive up there, she told her parents for the first time about her imaginary friend that she had had when she was lost in the woods for three days. She said that she had the imaginary friend from the moment that she realized she was lost until the moment that she was rescued. And she was very specific about it. She said that she had long, dark hair and pigtails, and she wore a purple shirt and red pants and white shoes and had a flashlight. And her name was Alicia."
Writer Benjamin Hale says this story took her parents quite by surprise, and it quickly spread among the adults who had been involved in the search and rescue, including Tim Ernst. The well-known photographer and writer had offered his Newton County home as a sort of base during the three days Haley was missing. After hearing about Haley's imaginary friend, Tim Ernst sent an email to Haley's grandmother, Joyce Hale.
"He said, my wife Pam — the other day, we were talking about Haley's Alicia, and she asked me if there were ever any little girls who got lost or died in those woods. And I said, yes, there was this crazy incident that happened in the 70s where there was a small cult that had come from Springdale, of all places. And they murdered a little girl and buried her in a plastic bucket near that area in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness."
Joyce's curiosity piqued, she began investigating. Benjamin Hale says Joyce found newspaper accounts from late April 1978.
"And found the story of this cult that had originally come up from Baton Rouge and were living in Northwest Arkansas for about a year and a half before they went out to the Ozarks and murdered this girl."
Authorities identified four members of the cult they thought were connected to the murder of the girl. Three entered plea deals that meant long prison sentences. The fourth, the mother of the girl, went on trial.
"She was found guilty, but they only sentenced her to five years in prison. And she only served two and a half of those. And when she got out, she was 25 years old and still had her life in front of her. And she got married and had another family and just had a whole other life after that."
The woman's public defender, Tom Keith, believed the mother was innocent — that she was also a victim of the cult and should never have been sentenced to prison.
"He had kept in touch with her. Her husband knew what had happened in her past, but almost no one else in her life did. None of the people in her regular social orbit knew anything about it. Tom was one of the only ones."
Skip ahead to 2001, and Tom Keith asked Joyce — Haley's grandmother, who was intrigued by both the 1978 story and her own granddaughter's experience while lost — if she'd like to connect with the murdered girl's mother.
"She said, absolutely. And eventually — Lucy, said Joyce in an email — Lucy is the pseudonym, the name of the mother in the book. And they became friends in a very unlikely way."
Benjamin Hale's book covers the ground regarding both Haley's and the cult's stories, separated by 23 years, but also, even if coincidentally, connected.
The girl's death was April 25, 1978, and Haley became lost April 28, 2001.
"And the fact that two incidents happened not in exactly the same place, but probably about a mile and a half apart from each other as the crow flies. Which is also an eerie coincidence, but it's not the exact same place. She said that her imaginary friend was 4 years old. And Bethany, when she was murdered, was 3 years old. And then there are other things, like Haley said that she had a flashlight with her, which would have been undoubtedly helpful if she had actually had one in the woods. And then Lucy later said that at some point she had given her daughter a flashlight to replace a Raggedy Ann doll that someone else in the cult had taken away from her, and that she actually did have a flashlight — that was one of her few cherished possessions. That's an eerie coincidence. But they're all coincidences."
Hale first wrote about all of this for an article published in the August 2023 issue of Harper's. By the time that article was published, Hale was considering more research to expand the story into a book. For the more recent element — the search and rescue — Hale had access to his cousins Haley and her mother Kelly, and his aunt and uncle Joyce and Jay Hale. To amplify the story of the cult that had relocated to the Ozarks in the 1970s required a different set of research skills.
"Early on, I went to the Newton County Sheriff in Jasper and asked them if they had any records about this case. I got there kind of late in the day — it was about 4:30 on a Friday. The only guy who was in the Newton County Sheriff's Office in Jasper was about to close up for the day. And I asked him about this, and he obligingly took me into a back room and let me look through their records. And they didn't have anything about it. But the guy said, Ray Watkins, who used to be the sheriff of Newton County — and before that, he was a deputy — he might have been with the sheriff's office when that incident happened. And he works at the hardware store. You can probably catch him if you just go over there right now. And so I drove over to Bob's Do it Best Hardware and Lumber, right outside of Jasper. And the guy sitting behind the counter was an almost-90-year-old man who still works at the hardware store. And I asked him if his name was Ray Watkins and if he used to be the sheriff, and before that a deputy. And he said, 'Yeah.' And I asked if he was involved in this story, and he said, 'Yeah — I was the one who arrested him.'"
At the heart of the book is a pair of historic Ozark stories, but also an element that is more — or less — than history.
"Do I think that this is a ghost story, that it was the spirit of Bethany Clark that guided Haley in the woods? No, I don't believe that. But there are some pretty spine-tingling coincidences that can't be explained except as just a collection of coincidences. And what other people think, I don't know."
Benjamin Hale will discuss his book, Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks, Tuesday night, March 10, at the Fayetteville Public Library at 6 p.m. in the Walker Community Room, followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. We spoke last week by Zoom.
