Days after news broke 21-year-old missing hikers Rachel Nguyen and Joseph Orbeso had not only been found dead off the trails of Joshua Tree National Park, but also that their remains had been found locked in an embrace, authorities reported the pair had suffered gunshot wounds. Now it’s believed Orbeso shot Nguyen and then himself in a “sympathetic murder-suicide,” the Desert Sun reports.
Though their autopsy reports show they both died of gunshot wounds, Nguyen was also suffering from an unspecified head injury. “Rachel possibly injured herself sliding down a cliff and Joseph went after her and took care of her,” her uncle Son told the paper. Her T-shirt was found wrapped around her head like some kind of bandage and Orbeso’s shirt had been placed over her legs. When her pain became too much to bear (and the pair ran out of food and water), the Nguyens believe Orbeso shot Rachel.
“Until you are in the same situation … you don’t know how you would react,” Son said. He also explained his family “[believes] in the detective’s accounts of this being a sympathetic murder-suicide. We hold no grudges against Joseph or the Orbeso family.”
According to the OC Register, the Sheriff’s Department is unsure if they’ll ever be able to definitively identify Orbeso’s motive. “There was nothing like a note or a phone call to explain the circumstances that we found,” San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said. “It’s unfortunate because it leaves questions for their family.”
The families are now planning proper burials for their respective children.
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Tess Koman covers breaking (food) news, opinion pieces, and features on larger happenings in the food world. She oversees editorial content on Delish. Her work has appeared on Cosmopolitan.com, Elle.com, and Esquire.com.
