Suicide Victim Found In Park Campground

The McDowell County Sheriff’s Office contacted the park around 9:30 p.m. on July 10th and advised rangers that a possibly suicidal man might be in the Craggy Gardens picnic area or the Crabtree Meadows area and that he was thought to be driving a rented maroon minivan. These two locations and the stretch of parkway between them span 66 miles. Rangers checked the entire area but found neither the man nor the vehicle. On the following morning, rangers were notified that the man’s cell phone had ‘pinged’ a county cell tower earlier that same morning. The areas were again checked, but without success – until a corrected vehicle description was passed on by park dispatch. At 9 a.m. a rented, full-sized white van was found in the Crabtree Meadows campground. The body of Gary Hanna, a 50-year-old North Carolina man, was found inside. Hannah was reportedly despondent over recent financial difficulties, mental and physical ailments that he and his father were suffering, and the loss of his job at the end of this year. Investigators concluded that Hannah locked himself inside the rented van and ignited a charcoal grill sometime in the late evening, then apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. At the time of discovery, the charcoal was still glowing and holding a significant amount of heat. This was the fourth suicide in the Pisgah District and the sixth overall in the park this year.