For three decades, the disappearance of two 24-year-old friends—Connor James and Rachel Peterson—haunted families, hikers, and investigators across the lower Hudson Valley. On July 12, 1994, the college classmates set out to hike the craggy ridgelines near Storm King Mountain and never returned. Their car was found idling by dusk at the trailhead; their trail went cold soon after.

In spring 2024, a single mud-caked boot wedged in a narrow cliff fissure jolted the dormant case back to life. DNA lifted from the leather and lining matched both missing hikers. Within months, an aging truck driver named Steven Armstrong confessed to driving the pair to a remote overlook and pushing them into a sheer drop. Last week, a jury found Armstrong guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, closing one of the region’s most stubborn mysteries.

A Daytrip That Became a Cold Case

Friends described James, a budding photographer, and Peterson, a painter, as “inseparable collaborators” who hunted light and color along the Hudson Highlands. On the morning they vanished, they packed water, sandwiches, sketching supplies, and a folded trail map before parking at the Storm King lot near the Breakneck Ridge approaches. Witnesses recalled their laughter as they entered the woods; nobody saw where they went after the first ascent.

The 1994 search was massive for the era—rangers, volunteers, helicopters, and K-9 units quartered the slopes, talus fields, and ravines. Yet the mountain’s steep pitches, hidden chutes, and dense canopies blunted the effort. Investigators floated two early theories: an accidental fall from a cliff or a wrong turn into unmarked terrain. With no bodies, no gear, and no signs of a struggle, the file drifted to the back shelves of a small cold-case unit.

“Everything we had was inference,” recalls a retired ranger who worked the original sweep. “Storm King can hide anything it wants to.”

The Boot in the Crevice

In October 2024, a team of climbers descending a technical line known as Devil’s Staircase spotted what looked like debris jammed far inside a vertical crack—a woman’s size-six hiking boot. Its location—deep in the rock, unreachable from a casual overlook—suggested force, not littering.

State police sealed the site and sent the boot to the lab. Though degraded by weather and time, samples yielded two profiles: James and Peterson. For the first time, investigators had a physical link tying the friends to that spine of cliff.

Inspector Kimberly Dalton, a veteran of complex cold cases, re-opened the file. She digitized maps, overlaid 1994 witness notes and radio logs, and built a geo-profile centered on the car, early sightings, and the crevice find. Then she re-interviewed everyone whose name appeared in the original binder—including college acquaintances who, to that point, had offered only hazy recollections.

One detail broke open the timeline. Andrew Ellis, a friend from art school, remembered a contingency plan the pair had discussed: if James’s balky hatchback wouldn’t start, they’d hitch a ride north out of the city. That note collided with Dalton’s canvas of historical police records: a local trucker with past assault arrests had been ticketed near Route 9W—close to Storm King—the same week the hikers vanished.

The Interview That Cracked the Wall

When Dalton brought Steven Armstrong into an interview room, the conversation began with routine questions about routes and schedules from 30 years ago. He feigned memory gaps. Dalton let the silence work, then placed the recovered boot on the table.

She described the crevice, the DNA match, and the technical nature of the spot—reachable only by roped climbers or someone who knew the mountain’s hidden access points. Armstrong’s façade slipped. Sweat beaded. His gaze fixed on the boot.

Over two hours, the confession tumbled out in flat, halting phrases. He had picked up the pair—two polite kids with daypacks—offered a “shortcut” to a high overlook far from the crowds, and led them toward the edge. When they sensed danger and tried to flee, he shoved them into the void. He kept the shoe as a private trophy, he said—stowing it in his truck cab for years before panic drove him back to wedge it inside the cliff.

The mountain had held its secret; the boot had held the story.

Courtroom Reckoning

At trial this summer, prosecutors built the case along three pillars:

Forensics: DNA traces from the boot’s leather and fabric lining matched both victims; mineral traces on the boot’s outsole matched Devil’s Staircase rock composition.
Geospatial analysis: Dalton’s map stack aligned the car, witness timings, and the crevice location to show a plausible corridor of movement consistent with Armstrong’s trucking routes and ticket history.
Confession and opportunity: The taped admission, corroborated by site details Armstrong could not have known from news coverage, and Ellis’s testimony about potential hitchhiking.

The defense labored to sow doubt about memory degradation and chain-of-custody gaps across decades. Jurors were unconvinced. After two days of deliberation, they returned guilty on both counts. The judge imposed life without parole.

Outside the courthouse, Sarah James, Connor’s mother, clutched a weathered camera her son had left on his desk in 1994. “Justice came late,” she said, “but it came.” John and Mary Peterson spoke of creating a permanent scholarship for young artists who draw inspiration from the Hudson Valley—a way to carry Rachel’s gentle curiosity forward.

Lessons From a Long Winter

The case will be studied in homicide seminars for what it illustrates about patience and modern tools:

Tiny artifacts matter. One isolated object—long dismissed as litter—carried the identities of both victims and anchored a new search grid.
Cold files can warm with new methods. DNA sensitivity today dwarfs 1990s capabilities; geo-profiling and digital mapping can re-knit scattered facts into clear routes.
Old witness memories can still move the needle. Ellis’s modest recollection about hitchhiking reframed the perimeter of possibility and pointed investigators toward a suspect pool that had never been cross-checked.

For the hiking community, the resolution doubles as reminder and reassurance. Storm King’s escarpments remain beautiful and unforgiving; safety improvements and better signage help, but risk never falls to zero. What changes most is attention—from rangers, from hikers, and from the public willing to call in the odd scrap of information that doesn’t feel important until, suddenly, it is.

A Mountain Reclaimed

On a clear morning this week, families and friends gathered at the trailhead below Storm King for a small memorial. There were no grand speeches, just the hum of wind across the ridge and a handful of stories: Connor chasing the last light with a battered 35mm; Rachel sketching maple leaves into a study of color and quiet.

They placed two wildflower wreaths near the kiosk and read the names softly. Some hikers paused, then moved on up the stone steps, past pitch pines gripping the ledges—past the place where uncertainty finally yielded to truth.

The mountain remains. So do the lessons: that justice can arrive on the smallest evidence, that persistence outlasts the seasons, and that two artists who went looking for beauty left behind a different kind of legacy—one of courage from families who refused to stop asking, and of investigators who refused to stop looking.