Emerson Valley Park Service ranger Mark Jenson, 26, was found dead earlier today along the “D” trail in Blackwood Forest. Fellow ranger Katrina Stark was sent to search for him when he didn’t check in at the Ranger Station for his shift this morning. Mr. Jenson’s body was discovered just off the trail, beneath some bushes. There were reportedly several large branches laid on top of him, as if someone had tried to hide the body. The police were called to determine Mr. Jenson’s cause of death.

“Sheriff Grayson contacted me a few hours ago and said Mark died from a drug overdose around 11 PM last night,” Chief Ranger Samantha Bellinger told the Gazette. “If you knew Mark, you’d know that’s complete BS, pardon my language. His lived by the “your body is your temple” philosophy. I don’t think he even took an aspirin when he got a headache.”

Mrs. Bellinger has clashed with Sheriff Victor Grayson on numerous occasions since taking over as chief ranger at the start of 2020. She had supported him early on in his first term, when part of his campaign promise was to solve the suspicious deaths of Maya Thomas and Daniel Green. At the time, Sheriff Grayson heavily criticized former Sheriff Oliver Price for not investigating the deaths as murders. However, he later declared the victims’ wounds to be self-inflicted and their deaths a suicide.

“That whole thing never sat right with me,” said Mrs. Bellinger. “If you’d seen the bodies when they were found, you’d know it wasn’t suicide. Now it feels like it’s happening all over again. Mark didn’t do this to himself. If he overdosed, someone forced those drugs into his system.”

Miss Stark is also doubtful of the sheriff’s determination. “When I found him, he had cuts and bruises on his arms. It looked like maybe he’d been fighting with someone. But the police said they were from him falling into the bushes after ODing and passing out.”

The official report from the Sheriff’s Department is that Mr. Jenson overdosed on an undisclosed recreational drug, passed out in the bushes next to the hiking trail, and then whoever was doing drugs with him covered him with branches to hide his body long enough to flee the forest. Darren Maynard, Mr. Jenson’s boyfriend, vehemently challenges this version of events.

“There’s no way Mark was doing drugs. He was all about nature and clean, healthy living,” Mr. Maynard said. “He got me to stop drinking because he thinks every drink you take is killing your body a little more. He got me into veganism and hiking and stuff. He loved the forest almost as much as he loved me. I think he stumbled on some druggies getting high on the trails when he was getting off work and he confronted them. They must’ve injected him or forced something down his throat to keep him quiet.”

“If the sheriff says it’s not a suspicious death, there’s nothing stopping me from doing my own investigation,” Mrs. Bellinger asserted. “He threatened to charge me with interfering in a police investigation when I tried to look into Dan and Maya’s murders, but it sounds like he’s already closed the case on Mark. I’m allowed to investigate any non-violent crimes that occur in the forest without police involvement, and it sounds like we’ve got some trespassers who are doing drugs here, so that’s what I’ll be investigating.”

If you have any information about the death of Mark Jenson, don’t bother contacting the Sheriff’s Department. You can reach out to Chief Ranger Samantha Bellinger or send us an email at emersonvalleygazette@gmail.com.

-Quinn Paxton, Acting Editor-in-Chief, Emerson Valley Gazette