Is Forrest Fenn Treasure Real? Illinois Man's Death Linked To $2M Bounty

An Illinois man, who died in Yellowstone National Park in 2017, was looking for a $2 million treasure, reports said Monday. Jeff Murphy, a 53-year-old husband and father was inspired by an obscure poem about a hidden treasure which led to his tragic death after he fell down a 500-foot slope.

In June last year, Murphy's wife called Yellowstone officials to report her husband's disappearance after he had gone out in search of the treasure. Murphy was looking for the treasure rumored to be enclosed in a small box and buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains by a millionaire named Forrest Fenn.

Murphy's body was found June 9, 2017, a day after his wife reported him missing. The details surrounding Murphy’s death and the following investigation was kept private until local media KULR recently obtained a report through the Freedom of Information Act. Officials ruled that Murphy's death was accidental.

Murphy is the fourth person who died while looking for Fenn's treasure, NPR reported.

In another incident the same month, officials found the remains of another treasure hunter, Eric Ashby, 31, who was rafting with three other people on the Arkansas River in Fremont County, Colorado, when the raft capsized. According to reports, Ashby moved to Colorado Springs to look for Fenn's treasure. His remains were found 15 miles downstream from where he went missing.

Since 2016, two other men died while searching for the treasure worth $2 million, which allegedly includes 265 gold coins along with gems, rubies and hundreds of gold nuggets.

Randy Bilyeu, 54, disappeared along the Rio Grande River in January 2016 and Colorado pastor Paris Wallace, 52, went missing in June.

Finn, an 87-year-old, encourages people to follow clues in his two books "Thrill of the Chase and Too Long For Walking" to find the treasure. However, authorities have demanded Fenn retrieves the treasure to bring an end to the "nonsense and insanity" that is "putting lives at risk."

Fenn has maintained the treasure was not in a dangerous place and was easy to find.

Fenn told People magazine, replying to those who called the treasure a hoax: "Somebody figures out in their own mind exactly where the treasure is, and they go there and it’s gone. They decide one of two things: either somebody has already found it and taken it home, or the whole story is a hoax. So they ask me how I can prove that I actually hid the treasure. What can I do? The only thing is to take them out there. Lots of people saw the treasure chest when it was in my vaults before I hid it."