‘I’m going to murder us all’: Isle Royale camper heard threats nearly two days before deaths reported

Roughly 40 hours before rangers said they were notified of two dead bodies in Isle Royale National Park, spurring them to hike overnight to a remote campground, a hiker called police and reported screaming and threats of murder and suicide at the site full of campers.

“For about the last hour, hour plus, there is someone down there who is completely unhinged,” the caller told a Michigan police dispatcher in early June, according to audio of the call obtained Monday by the Minnesota Star Tribune. “He’s still screaming. We’ve heard him say, ‘Go ahead and kill yourself, I’m going to kill myself, I’m going to murder us all.’”

The call raises new questions about the National Park Service‘s response to the deaths of a father and son in the rugged wilderness on the Lake Superior island off the coast of Grand Portage, Minn.

Park service officials declined to answer questions about whether law enforcement responded to the site between the warning of potential violence at roughly 12:10 a.m. June 7 and the time rangers arrived at the campground early June 9.

The caller said it was a “very full campground” with at least three other groups in addition to their own and the person screaming. The caller said they packed up in the dark and left South Lake Desor Campground, on the island’s interior, and headed toward the tiny enclave of Windigo 11 miles west.

“How scared we are, we’ll be there in an hour,” the person said.

Michigan officials have identified the two dead men as 30-year-old Bradley Baird and 60-year-old John Baird, but federal investigators have said almost nothing else since the bodies were discovered.

The death certificates list the time of death as unknown and the cause as pending, though a local medical examiner told the Michigan news outlet MLive in late June that the suspected cause of death was murder-suicide and it’s not clear who died first. The home address listed on the death certificates of both men is in Salem Township, outside of Detroit.

In a news release about the incident, the park service said it got two separate reports of bodies at 4 p.m. June 8, and then hiked the 11 miles overnight to confirm the deaths.

The audio of the June 7 emergency call was released to the Minnesota Star Tribune by Michigan State Police in response to a request for records about the incident.

The records also include calls between Michigan police and Isle Royale Chief Ranger Antonio Robinson.

Robinson called local law enforcement on the evening of June 8, asking for a deputy or detective that deals with dead bodies to give them a call. In the recording of the call, Robinson said a ranger would hike in that night to the dead bodies to “babysit” after his dispatchers got an “SOS” around “5 o’clock.”

In recorded audio of another call by Michigan officials that day, a dispatcher says they contacted Isle Royale rangers and those rangers “were going to see about sending somebody out there.”

The initial caller said they at first heard two voices. “Now for the longest time it’s been just one voice,” the person said.