Blue Mountains Horror: A Mother’s Incestuous Cult Uncovered by the Disappearance of Salesman’s Hat and Her Babies’ Graves

In the late 19th century, Wise County, Virginia, was defined by the majestic, yet isolated, presence of the Blue Mountains. Here, communities were islands of civilization separated by vast, unforgiving wilderness, a land where the law often stopped at the edge of the nearest ravine. It was in one of those secluded corners, a place the locals called the Goens Mountain, that a family withdrew from the world, cultivating a darkness that would astound even the most hardened researchers a decade later.

The family was the Goens. After the death of the patriarch, Samuel Goens, in a mining accident in 1878, his widow, Eliza Goens, left the society for good. A stern woman, dressed in black, raised her three sons—Caleb, Josiah, and Benjamin—in absolute isolation. They stopped attending the local school and cut off all contact with the outside world. The outside world, accustomed to respecting a family’s intense desire for privacy in the mountains, simply left them alone.

This communal silence would prove to be a tragic trigger for the horrors to come.

The Silent Pattern of Disappearances
Between 1898 and 1908, a chilling pattern emerged: five men disappeared on the same 16-kilometer stretch of mountain road that led to the Goen estate. They weren’t locals simply looking for a fresh start; they were men connected to the outside world.

The first was Martin Hayes, a geologist from Richmond, who disappeared in 1898 while mapping possible coal deposits. Four years later, the Rev. Jacob Whitmore, a kind itinerant preacher beloved by the scattered families of the mountain, disappeared after being seen climbing the ridge trail. In the years that followed, three more men disappeared without a trace.

At the small county office, Sheriff Thomas Compton, a veteran law enforcement officer, studied the reports. Deep down, I knew that five disappearances in the same small area over the course of a decade were not a series of unfortunate accidents. But suspicion was not proof.

Compton rode to the Goen estate in 1908 and was greeted by the Goens’ three sons, burly and bearded men who watched him with unsettling intensity. Behind them was Eliza, who, coolly and correctly, quoted the law: no warrant, no search. The sheriff left with only a deepening and unprovable conviction that evil resided in that clearing. The case went cold, with a heavy unsolved file on his desk.

The Great Breakthrough: The Brown Bowler Hats
The silence was finally broken in the spring of 1912 with the disappearance of Edmund Pierce, a traveling salesman of farm tools. Pierce was well known and his disappearance, unlike the others, immediately unleashed intense pressure on Sheriff Compton. Pierce was last seen heading towards the same cursed ridge.

The opportunity Compton had waited for 14 years came from an unexpected source: Thomas Brennan, a 23-year-old postman. Brennan, nervous about getting involved in the Goens family’s dangerous affairs, reported a detail too specific to ignore. He had seen the youngest son, Benjamin Goens, repairing a fence, and on his head he wore a distinctive brown bowler hat. Brennan was “almost certain” that it was the same hat he had seen Edmund Pierce wear two months earlier.

This was the evidence Compton needed. He immediately assembled a trusted team of five armed officers. This time, they wouldn’t turn it down.

The raid and the horror exposed
On the morning of June 15, 1912, Sheriff Compton and his men entered the Goens estate on horseback. The three brothers remained defensive, but when Eliza came out, she spoke to them in a low voice and they reluctantly stepped aside.

The search immediately yielded devastating evidence:

Edmund Pierce’s grave: Behind the smokehouse, deputies found a shallow, recently removed grave containing Pierce’s body, along with his distinctive brown bowler hat buried next to him.

The Trophies: Hidden under a loose board of the floor in Eliza’s room, was a small locked chest. Inside, the agents found personal effects of the other missing people: a silver pocket watch engraved with the initials of the surveyor, Martin Hayes; Glasses; and four wallets: strong evidence of multiple premeditated murders.

Infant remains: The most shocking discovery came when an officer noticed that the smokehouse floorboards sounded hollow. When lifting them, the agents found a shallow space where the skeletal remains of two babies lay, wrapped in rotten cloth. The bones were small and fragile, clear evidence of the unimaginable acts committed on the property.

Before the tiny, tragic remains, Eliza Goens stood with chilling serenity. He explained that the children were “blessed,” the “purest souls ever born,” and that “everything he had done had been in the service of God’s true plan for his family.”

The Ungodly Theology of Eliza Goens
In the Wise County Jail, Eliza Goens openly confessed to Sheriff Compton, speaking without question.