Two years on, US mother offers $10,000 reward for evidence of 'murder' of her son in Siberia

The reward comes from Dana Madsen Calcutt whose attempts to reopen the official investigation into her son’s death have met with failure in Russia. 

'Colin would have been 27 on the 18 February - and it has been over two years since I last saw him.  

'I think it would save others in Siberia if we could find and prosecute these murderers of innocents.’

When Madsen, the stepson of a respected British microbiology professor, suddenly went missing in this mountainous region, it was only a local shaman who accurately foretold his tragic fate. 

The American would be found dead more than a week after he vanished, predicted this diviner of good and evil spirits.

This proved true - the body of the linguistics student who had been studying at a Russian university in Irkutsk was discovered under a tree, flat on his back, in the shadow of spectacular 2,412 metre Love Peak (or Peak of Love) which he had been due to climb with three friends on 27 March 2016, the day he disappeared.

Another shaman was certain - several days after Colin vanished - that he was still alive: it transpires this is possible, too. 

In this mystical region - where Buddhism and coexists with modern-day shamanism - the police and Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI, quickly decided that forensic evidence established wannabe UN diplomat Madsen's death was due to him freezing to death. 

He had wandered out of the log cabin he shared with his friends in the middle of the night following a cannabis session, got lost on the mountain, they decided.

They were in the resort village of Arshan in the Sayan Mountains, five time zones east of Moscow.

What follow, according to the family, is a grotesque abuse of justice. 

Rigorous US forensic tests, commissioned by his grieving family after Madsen’s body returned to America, indicate the 'warm hearted' talented linguist was struck in the head, his wrists bound and that he was suffocated. 

Last year Colin's stepfather Professor Mick Calcutt,  who teaches at the University of Missouri, and his wife, the victim's mother, Dana Madsen-Calcutt, 57, called on Putin and US president Donald Trump to intervene to force out the truth. 

Their efforts fell on deaf ears but they refuse to give up. 

'The report indicates that Colin did not die on the spot where his body was found and he had sustained injuries to the wrists and hands that appear he was bound, and a blunt weapon injury to his head,' said the academic. 

'It is clear he was murdered, there is no doubt whatsoever.'

Dana flew in from the family home in America four days after he went missing. 

She now says: 'I really, truly feel he was murdered while I was there.'

The grieving couple 'feel the police were involved in a cover-up of the death.'

The secret of what happened to Colin lies here among the picturesque lavender-scented slopes of this Soviet-era thermal spa village almost 1,000 metres above sea level.

Foreigners are few here, and Russian local tourists sit in cafes with smoking shashliks - Russian barbecues. 

We came here with one of Colin's friends on the trip, Dmitry Emelyanov, 31, a sales representative, who returned to Arshan for the first time since these horrific events. 

That night the student had been 'his normal self, calm, funny and confident', he said.

If ever there was a conflict, Colin tried to resolve it and 'always saw the good in everyone'.

'He loved life and wanted to discover everything.'

He had made a wide circle of friends in his three years studying in Siberia.

'I was the last person to hear Colin's steps,' he said. 

The four men were sharing the primitive shack - with a stove and six beds - ahead of their hike.

They went to sleep at 2am, and were due up at 5am for a bracing wash in the ice cold waters of the tumbling Kyngarga river.

'Colin came back from the outside toilet and I heard him closing and locking the door,' insisted Dmitry. 'I saw him sitting on his bed. That was it.' 

Lucas Fagre, an American student also studying in Irkutsk, fell asleep first, then Russian gift shop owner Pavel Tarasov, 31.  

'I remember Colin's belongings on his bed - a backpack, hoodie and vest,' said Dmitry. 

'We went asleep and the three of us heard nothing.'

He said: 'Either Colin never fell asleep, or he went out again before going to bed. 

'Possibly to the toilet again, or just to get some fresh air. I woke up in three hours and Colin was missing. 

'I got Pavel and Lucas up, and we started to search for him.'

The three scoured the area all day, putting up missing person notices, but then the first odd thing happened: they could not raise the police in Arshan or elsewhere in the district for 13 crucial hours.

When the police eventually arrived, they were not interested in searching for the missing Westerner and instead held friends for some 19 hours, without sleep, food, water - or lawyers. 

'We were expecting the police to help us hunt for Colin,' he said. 'But we were wrong. The police accused Colin of committing suicide and being an alcoholic and drug user.'

One interrogator named Yuri Erenbtuev from the Investigative Committee - equivalent of the FBI - was especially 'aggressive and intimidating'. 

'We were then accused of murdering Colin - and raping his dead body.'

The police decided - falsely - that the men were gay.

'It was beyond them to understand that a group of men might come to Arshan for something as normal as climbing, bringing books with them - and without vodka,' he said. 

'In fact, we HAD been before - with girls. Colin had been to Arshen previously in a group, bringing a girl called Anna with him. 

'They searched our belongings, found tea, and accused us of using drugs. 

'They found books, and accused us of being gay, because 'normal' straight men do not come here with books and without vodka or girls.'

In all this time, the police did not activate a search for Colin. 

Instead the two Russian friends - and later Lucas - were forced to undergo a lie-detector test and asked if they had murdered or beaten their friend. 

They were threatened with 'torture' and told they would be made to wear masks and inhale gas if they did not 'speak properly'.

But the friends all passed the polygraph check, and also underwent drugs tests which showed they were clean, as was a screen later on Colin's body in the US.

'We are left thinking, were they really interested in proper searches for Colin before his mother arrived four days later?'

A law enforcement source critical of the police operation said: 'Did they already know Madsen was dead, or gone forever? Why were they not searching?'

Only a handful of rescuers were deployed - and the friends even paid themselves for a motorised hang glider to conduct an aerial search. 

His route took him over a small clearing in woods where Colin's body would later be found: but he saw no sign of the student.

When Colin's distraught mother arrived on 1 April, instead of showing her how they were actively searching for her missing son, a police interrogator quizzed her on his sexuality, leaving her in tears.  

'I knew Colin would not be found alive after I talked to him. He was spitting with hatred and contempt as he thought those men should not be staying together without girls or alcohol,' she has said.

As if this, even if true, somehow justified him vanishing - or worse.

'This obsessive interest meant the cops didn't search for Madsen or check other versions of who might have been responsible for his disappearance or murder,' said a local source. 

Dana said: 'He kept trying to get me to say Colin liked boys and wondering how much money he spent per month and where it came from. When I was exhausted and in utter disbelief, I told him Colin had a girlfriend at home - and I saw pure fear.'

It was on 4 April that Colin's body was eventually found, just a mile from the village, some 500 ft higher, and a distasteful picture of the find was immediate leaked to a Russian news website. 

No personal belongings had been stolen.

Russian experts noticed 'traumas' on his body but denied these were a cause of death, a finding disputed by US experts hired by Colin's family. 

Hypothermia victims are usually in the foetal position: Colin was stretched out on his back.

'The night he disappeared was mild, I wore only a T-shirt at 5am ,' said Dmitry. 

The Russians said he probably got lost in the mountains. But he had lived in Irktusk for three years and knew them well, and even acted as a guide.

'We don't think he died here,' he added, showing us the site. 'He was placed there to be found, as part of a cover-up into his death.'

The forensic findings in the US suggest Colin died less than eight days before he was found, and that he had not long lain at this site of dry fallen leaves and grass.

Even the Russian findings cannot fix the time of his death. 

Colin's discovery came soon after the arrival of a crack team of investigators from Moscow, who locals are convinced were in fact not police but officers from the powerful FSB, Russia's security service once headed by Putin. 

Yet there is no official record of either top Moscow investigators or the FSB being present even though one of Colin's friends was interviewed by a Lubyanka agent for two hours.  

So what happened? The local shamans seem reluctant to say. 

Friends and family of Colin rule out that he went out in the night ill-dressed to hike alone.  

'He wouldn't do that,' said another acquaintance. 'He was too responsible. He had no enemies.'

'We don't definitely know what happened to him,' said Lucas. 'I don't think we ever will.' 

Clearly, he went outside, and locals offer several options. 

One theory is that he heard a noise and went to investigate, disturbing one or more intruders, heavy drinkers, or drug addicts or even a local criminal gang able to buy off the police, who either hurt or killed him for unknown reasons.

Another is that the reason police did not respond for so long was a major crime-fighting operation six miles away. 

'It could that be Colin, walking out at night, was mistakenly swept up in this search by police, and something went wrong, and the cops covered their traces,' said one source.

'Whatever happened, it looks like he was kidnapped or otherwise held alive between his disappearance and his death, and that body was then placed under this tree.'

Arshan is awash with CCTV cameras, and locals say 'must have picked him up as he wandered around in the village'.

Dmitry said: 'I think the FSB guys came here and quickly understood what happened - probably just by checking all the CCTV footage.' What they saw or learned was too explosive and damaging to divulge. 

But there was another troubling aspect. Lucas had tried to go back to his studies in Irkutsk after Colin's death. 

Then suddenly he said the Russian state 'fixed its eyes on me'. He left Russia after taking advice from the US embassy.

'I left Russia out of fear that I would be detained,' he said. 

'I got a ticket back to the States and was on a plane within 24 hours.'

Lawyer Andrey Grivtsov, a former investigator of serious cases for the Investigative Committee, said the probe was not carried out properly. 

The reason why Colin Madsen's body was found here with his trousers lowered was not established, he said.

Nor why the corpse was missed by a search party which evidently went to this location in the aftermath of his disappearance. 

'It was not established why there are some injuries on Colin's body,' he said.

'Additional analysis to understand if they could have formed because of a single fall or only because of multiple hits was not conducted.' 

No proper checks were conducted to establish how the level of drugs allegedly found might have impacted on Madsen's behaviour - or not. 

The accused senior investigators of wanting to close the case but conducting it 'in a low-quality manner' that did not lead to its completion. 

'This doesn't particularly surprise me because it is how they normally work,' he said. 

Russian-based US lawyer Glenn Kolleeny was quoted in the Russian media as saying: 'The likely cause of death is strangulation.

'That's what marks on neck and face and petechial haemorrhage show.

'In my opinion, the Investigative Committee is intentionally trying to protect the guilty in Colin's murder. 

'One of key evidences is a pendant that Colin was wearing on his neck. It wasn't on the deceased at the place where the body was found. It was not indicated in the on-site inspection report.

'However, investigators returned it to the mother along with his passport and wallet. It shows that siloviki (security services) were either directly involved in murder or were related to the murderers who passed the pendant. 

'The autopsy in Russia was conducted in such a way that other experts would not be able to establish the cause of death.'

However, efforts of the family and their supporters have failed to convince the Russian authorities to reopen the case. 

Now they hope the reward will bring a vital extra clue to enable new legal action.