The Cowdens arrived at their campsite in the remote wilderness near Copper, Oregon on September 1, 1974. That same day, a family from Los Angeles camping nearby noticed something troubling: a truck with two men and a woman had pulled up to the Cowdens' campsite. The visitors seemed out of place, their presence unsettling. By the time anyone thought to check on the young family, they had simply vanished. The campsite remained, the tent still standing, but the family was gone without a trace. What followed was an exhaustive search that scoured the mountainous terrain for weeks, involving hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officers from across the region.

Seven months of uncertainty ended in April 1975 when hikers discovered human remains in a small cave several miles from the campsite. Dental records confirmed the worst: Belinda, David, and baby Melissa had been found. Richard's body lay separately, at the location where investigators believed he had been killed. The autopsies painted a brutal picture. Belinda and young David had been shot with a .22 caliber weapon. Five-month-old Melissa had died from severe head trauma. Investigators theorized that the mother and children may have been killed elsewhere and their bodies concealed in the cave. For Richard, no cause of death could be determined, though he appeared to have died where he was found.

Oregon State Police focused on one man: Dwain Lee Little, a convicted felon with a violent history. Evidence placed Little in the Copper area over that Labor Day weekend. A miner who lived nearby kept a guestbook for visitors, and Little and his parents had signed it on September 2, 1974, the day after the Cowdens disappeared. The Los Angeles family's description of the truck and its occupants matched Little and his parents. Little's girlfriend later told police she had seen him with a .22 caliber handgun around Christmas 1974, leading to his parole revocation in January 1975. In 1980, Little attacked a pregnant hitchhiker near Portland, leaving her for dead. He received three consecutive life sentences for that crime, and remains incarcerated to this day.

A jailhouse informant named Rusty Kelly, who once shared a cell with Little, claimed that Little had confessed to murdering the Cowden family. Despite what investigators described as 'voluminous' circumstantial evidence, Little has never been charged with the Cowdens' deaths. He and his parents have consistently denied any involvement or knowledge of what happened to the family. The case file remains open, the evidence tantalizing but insufficient for prosecution. For the extended Cowden family and the people of southern Oregon, the lack of closure compounds a tragedy that has never fully healed.

The Siskiyou Mountains where the Cowdens camped remain wild and sparsely populated today, much as they were in 1974. The area around Copper still draws campers and hikers who come for the same solitude the Cowdens sought. The case has been featured in true crime documentaries and books about Oregon's unsolved murders, ensuring that the family is not forgotten. Local newspapers periodically revisit the story, particularly around Labor Day, when the anniversary stirs memories of what happened half a century ago. Somewhere in those forested slopes, the truth of what befell Richard, Belinda, David, and baby Melissa lies buried, perhaps forever out of reach.