Some visit parks with grim agenda

Having mailed a farewell letter to his family back in Minnesota, Jerry O. Wolff stepped off a shuttle bus on a sunny Sunday morning and disappeared into Utah's rugged Canyonlands National Park.

"I am gone in a remote wilderness where I can return my body and soul to nature. There is no reason for anyone to look for me, just leave me where I am," he wrote.

No trace of Wolff has been found since he was last seen May 11. Park officials assume the 65-year-old biology professor committed suicide.

Millions of people come to national parks each year to enjoy the splendors of wildlife and natural beauty, but a tiny fraction arrive with a grim agenda.

So far this year, at least 18 people have committed suicide in America's national parks, from the swamplands of the Everglades and the beaches of Cape Cod to the rain-soaked forests of Olympic National Park and the bleak expanse of the Mojave Desert.

The most recent case involved a 47-year-old man at Timpanogos Cave National Monument who called the Utah County Sheriff's Office from the visitors center June 10 and told dispatchers he was going to shoot himself and where his body could be found. The body was discovered 15 minutes later.

For some, the parks are apparently just a convenient place to end it all. Others, though, seem to seek out the beauty and solace of these spots.

"Parks hold a special place in people's hearts," said Al Nash, a spokesman at Yellowstone, where five suicides have been recorded since 1997. "There are some individuals who feel it's important to have that kind of connection in those final moments."

As for Wolff, Jim Hughes, the police chief in his hometown of Sartell, Minn., said the St. Cloud State University professor had been to Canyonlands before for research. As for why he apparently took his life, Wolff had "some personal issues," the chief said. But he said he had no details.

The day after Wolff disappeared, searchers found the body of a 27-year-old man who drove into Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, Colo., parked on the side of a road, walked about 200 yards away and shot himself.

At the same park last October, a 57-year-old woman drove her station wagon off a 250-foot cliff. A few weeks later, a 63-year-old man drove to an overlook at the park called Cold Shivers Point, sat on a rock outcropping overlooking a valley and shot himself.