Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
On 10 November 2014, Kenny Veach set out to try and find a peculiar cave he thought he'd previously come across and was never seen again.
The explorer had told his girlfriend of his plans to look for the cave and search efforts found his car parked at the start of the hiking trail, but the only trace of him after he'd left the vehicle was his phone, discovered near an abandoned mineshaft 11 days after he was last seen.
Over a decade later his body has never been found, meaning that what happened to him on that final journey remains a mystery.
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Before he went missing Kenny had said he'd been hiking near Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, when he'd found a 'hidden cave' with the entrance 'shaped like a perfect capital M'.
Kenny claimed that before he could enter this cave his 'whole body began to vibrate' and the closer to the entrance he got the worse it became until he eventually decided to run away.
In October 2014 he posted a video to YouTube of his hike to try and find this M-shaped cave again, though he said he had been unsuccessful in relocating the entrance.
A few weeks later he made his third and final attempt where he disappeared, with his girlfriend reporting him missing afterwards.
Having disappeared with barely a trace there were many theories about what happened to Kenny, but someone claiming to be his girlfriend Sheryon explained her own take on the matter in a comment on the video of his second attempt to find the cave.
She said: "I want you to know that I do not think Kenny had an accident. I believe he committed suicide.
"He battled depression for many years and would not take medication or see a doctor. He quit his job a little more than a year before he disappeared."
She explained how Kenny had tried to become an inventor and set up an interior decorating business which had not gone well, saying he had become 'more depressed' as he had run out of money and didn't want to work for someone else.
Sheryon said she'd asked him if he was 'going to pull a Robin Williams' and he had told her that if he did decide to take his own life 'on one will ever find me'.
Noting that his phone had been found, she mentioned that she believed Kenny had left it behind so he couldn't be tracked with it, and that he hadn't taken his camera with him in this search for the cave despite filming the previous attempt.
She urged people to make sure they had enough food and water out on a hike, and to bring a GPS as well as telling people where they were going.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123 or contact Harmless by visiting their website https://harmless.org.uk.
Topics: US News, Mental Health
Joe Harker