On March 19th, a Massachusetts Department of Public Works plow driver noticed a car at the Taconic Crest Trail’s Berlin Pass trailhead in Williamstown that had been parked at that location since March 11. The vehicle was 700 feet from the New York border near Taconic Ridge State Forest.
Massachusetts State Police requested Forest Ranger assistance with a search for the 40-year-old owner of the car who had last been seen March 7.
Search operations over the next three days included 18 Forest Rangers and members of DEC’s Divisions of Law Enforcement and Emergency Management, New York State Police (NYSP), Massachusetts State Police, Massachusetts Emergency Management, Williamstown Police, Berkshire Mountain Search and Rescue (BMSAR), Central Massachusetts Search and Rescue, and the Berlin, Grafton, and Petersburgh Fire Departments.
After three days, Massachusetts State Police suspended the continuous search due to weather pending further investigation.
Rangers and BMSAR continued searching the area of Taconic Ridge State Forest over the next few weeks. On April 15 at about 11:30 am, Forest Ranger Steven Jackson located the subject deceased on the Taconic Ridge in Berlin, Rensselaer County, NY, nearly a mile from where the subject’s vehicle was located.
Williamstown Police Department confirmed that the remains are those of Fae Morgana Barbone.
The Abingto, MA police department and NYSP initially worked together on the case, but NYSP is no longer actively investigating the incident, according to the Berkshire Eagle.
Autopsy results are pending but NYSP told the Times Union that the hiker’s death does not appear to be suspicious.
The Taconic Crest Trail is a 37-mile long hiking trail in the Taconic Mountains from U.S. Route 20 in Hancock, Massachusetts, less than a mile east of the New York border, north along the ridge crest of the Taconic Range, first within Massachusetts, then weaving along the border of New York and Massachusetts and New York and Vermont, and ending in Petersburgh, NY, on NY Route 346, near the Vermont border.
Much of the route has been conserved as state forest, conservation easement, or forest preserve.
