BOISE -- Huckleberry Flat. It sounds like such a peaceful, happy place, but something violent happened there years ago.
Investigators know how it began. They know how it ended. They don't know what happened in the middle.
"We know that on October 20, 1974, Mark Carlson heads into Boise County to do some hunting and doesn't return home that night," said Idaho State Police Captain Bill Gardiner.
"You know 9:30, 10 o'clock, no Mark," said Mark Carlson's sister, Connie Sheldon. "We're all sitting up waiting on the couch wondering what the heck is going on? Where's Mark?"
Two days later, on Tuesday October 22, 1974, Sheldon and her family would get the answer they didn't want.
A search party found Sheldon's 17-year-old brother covered in snow, lying face down in a creek, dead from a single, high-powered rifle wound to the stomach.
How they got the answer is seared in Sheldon's mind.
"We had the TV on but not the sound. They had it on TV before we knew that they found his body," said Sheldon. "Then we didn't get word for another hour. Somebody finally called the house."
Huckleberry Flat is an area along Harris Creek Road between Horseshoe Bend and Placerville.
"Here's his hunting license," said Sheldon pointing to the deer tag Mark bought for that hunting trip. "That was his first and only time hunting."
All they have left of Mark fits in a gallon size Ziploc bag.
Unlike the deer tag or the sympathy cards and funeral ledger, not all the mementos in it are sad.
There are Mark's pay stubs from the Downtowner Motel where he earned the money for a down payment on his sweet, 1965 Mustang. There are his school pictures and a photo from a family outing at Robie Creek. It shows a shirtless Mark in cut-off jean shorts.
"Unfortunately, that's the last picture we have of him alive, but it's better than nothing," said Connie Sheldon.
Mark was the fifth of nine boys and girls, Connie just 10 months older. He was a Boy Scout, a bowler, even a little league coach.
"He was, he was good, a good guy," said Sheldon.
"That's really the big question," said ISP Capt. Bill Gardiner. "There doesn't seem to be anything that would point to someone having a grievance with this young man."
That's why the family can't understand what happened to him at Huckleberry Flat. His new hunting jacket and rifle were nowhere to be found, yet his body was only about 100 yards from his Mustang, parked nearby.
"He was laying face down, and on his backside he had abrasive marks where it was pretty clear that he had been drug through the dirt," said Gardiner.
"And then he had a bump on the back of his head like somebody had hit him," said Sheldon.
Witnesses reported seeing a Volkswagen Bug driving erratically on Harris Creek Road.
"They said that he looked like he was frantic," explained Sheldon. "Something bad had happened, and he was just all over the road."
But that car and driver have never been found. Neither has the bullet because it went in Mark's stomach and out his back. Mark's hunting rifle was found two years later, a mile from where his body was.
"That there leads us to conclude that someone was there," said Gardiner. "Someone took his gun and took it from the scene and disposed of it."
But who?
One of the questions that lingers is, did Mark go hunting alone or with someone?
Back in 1974 there was a Circle K convenience store at the intersection of Vista and Nez Perce. A clerk told police that she saw someone with Mark that Sunday morning, but investigators are not sure she had the right day.
"When I talked to him he said he was going to go hunting," said Mark's sister Connie Sheldon. "I said who are you going to go hunting with? And he said someone. He never said who."
In a 1977 meeting with investigators, Mark and Connie's stepdad, Clyde Luffman, summed up the sentiment that has tormented the family all these years.
On a recording of that meeting he says, "He (Mark) didn't drink. He didn't smoke. He liked to stay at home, and why anybody would shoot him, I'll never know."
Idaho State Police believe there's a chance they could someday know. That's why, at the request of the Carlson family, they reopened case number 1799 39 years after it was closed.
"Within the last year, we did receive a little bit more information, enough information that we can at least follow up on certain things," said Capt. Gardiner.
That effort continues today.
They've ruled out that Mark shot himself. Their theories are: either someone killed him on purpose, or it was a hunting accident and the person panicked.
With so much time having passed, and the original investigators all dead, detectives and the family agree on what is needed to solve this mystery.
"It's going to take a confession, I believe," said Sheldon.
"It may take someone that knows information about that to actually show the bravery to step up and contact us," said Gardiner.
Over the years, the family has hired private investigators and created the "In Memory of Mark Carlson" Facebook page hoping for tips or anything that could help.
Sheldon says she's elated now that State Police are working the case, too.
"Hopefully this has been gnawing at somebody, and that they can share it with us, just to give the family peace because what else can you expect after 40 years."
Or will Huckleberry Flat, the peaceful, happy sounding place, forever keep its violent secret?
Connie Sheldon invites anyone who knew Mark, or anyone who knows anything about the case, to visit the "In Memory of Mark Carlson" Facebook page.
Anyone with information can call Idaho State Police detectives at 208-884-7113.
