Cold Open

It’s December 31st, 1977, in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda.

A poacher pushes through the thick undergrowth, hacking at leaves and branches with his machete. He’s not worried about making noise. The animals he’s after won’t be able to run away, even if they hear him coming. A few days ago, the poacher passed this way and laid traps in the hope of catching some antelopes. But he’s surprised at how quickly the undergrowth has covered his tracks since he was last here.

The poacher chops at a branch that’s fallen across the path, blocking his way, and pushes it to the side. Then, he freezes. Squatting on the path just a few yards ahead is a large gorilla.

The gorilla rises off its haunches. It doesn’t move or run away. Instead, it looks the poacher right in the eye with a questioning, intelligent gaze. The poacher eases a gun from his shoulder, moving slowly. He came here today for antelopes, but a gorilla would be a much more valuable prize.

As if sensing the danger, the gorilla begins to roar. At the edge of his eyeline, the poacher sees the undergrowth shaking, other gorillas in a hidden group must be running away. But that doesn’t matter, the poacher only needs this one animal. The money he’ll get from it will feed his family for weeks. He looks down the barrel… and pulls the trigger.

The gorilla falls backward, stunned and before it has a chance to rise up again, the poacher runs forward, his machete gleaming.

The following day, the gorilla’s body will be discovered by scientists studying the group this mountain gorilla belonged to—and since the corpse is missing its head and hands, it’s clear that poachers were responsible. But the killing of Digit, as the dead gorilla was known, will spur American conservationist Dian Fossey to redouble her efforts to protect the species from poachers—but her increasingly extreme campaign will end eight years later, when Dian herself suffers a violent death on December 26th, 1985.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is December 26th, 1985: The Murder of Dian Fossey.

Act One

It’s September 1963 in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, 14 years before the killing of Digit the gorilla.

30-year-old Dian Fossey hikes through the dusty scrubland, following the footsteps of her guide. The scenery around her is breathtaking. A stony outcrop in the distance catches the sun and glows a remarkable shade of red. Dian can’t take her eyes off of it. But she should because while she is distracted, she catches her foot on a loose rock and tumbles heavily down a steep slope. She winces as the guide helps her back to her feet, a sharp pain shooting through her ankle.

Dian has always had a passion for wildlife and the outdoors. Born into an affluent family in San Francisco, she was a keen horse rider as a child and wanted to become a veterinarian. She didn’t have the grades, though, and ended up working as an occupational therapist at a children’s hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Still, Dian retained her passion for the animal world and, after several years of working, she saved enough money to treat herself to the vacation of a lifetime—a seven-week trip to Africa. Now that she's here, she's seen lions, elephants, zebras, and cheetahs on her adventure so far. And recently, she made her way to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. There, she struck up a friendship with the British archaeologists Louis and Mary Leakey. Their excavations in the gorge are revealing new information about the earliest days of humankind. But Dian will be of no use to them with what she fears is now, a broken ankle.

With the help of her guide, Dian hobbles back to the lodge she’s been staying in. The painful injury forces her to stay longer at Olduvai Gorge than she originally intended to—but that gives her the opportunity to spend more time with Louis and Mary. Dian discovers that Louis isn’t just interested in digging up the past. He also studies African apes in their natural habitat. According to Louis, the modern-day behavior of primates may shed light on how humans evolved millions of years ago.

During their evening conversations underneath Tanzania’s clear and starry sky, Dian becomes fascinated in Louis and Mary’s work. And when her ankle recovers, she resumes her itinerary through Africa. But she doesn’t forget what she learned in Olduvai Gorge, and at her next stop in Uganda, Dian conducts a brief study of the region’s mountain gorillas. She makes copious notes about their behavior, and when she returns to America, she writes them up in three articles for her local newspaper in Louisville.

For a time, that seems to be the end of her adventures abroad, and Dian resumes her career at the children’s hospital. But then, three years later, she hears that Dr. Louis Leakey is embarking on an American lecture tour—and one of his talks will be in Louisville. Dian books a ticket, and she waits in line after the show to reintroduce herself to the famous archaeologist. She shows him her notebook of observations about the mountain gorillas she saw in Uganda. And Louis is impressed. Before the evening’s over, he suggests that she change her career and become a researcher in Africa. And without any hesitation, Dian agrees.

Louis’s endorsement helps Dian secure funding for a long-term study of Africa’s mountain gorillas. And almost a year later in early 1967, she arrives in the remote Virunga Mountains of the Congo in Central Africa to begin her work. And just ten minutes into her first trek in the deep jungle, she encounters a gorilla. The startled animal melts into the bush and disappears from sight, but over the months that follow, Dian gradually earns the gorillas’ trust. She discovers that they are more likely to accept her presence if she copies their actions, and she even takes to walking on her knuckles when she comes close to a group. Dian recognizes individuals by their nose markings and takes detailed notes of each group’s behavior.

But the Congo is not a stable place to carry out long-term research. The country gained independence from Belgium just seven years ago and has been plagued by unrest and civil war ever since. Even in her remote camp, Dian isn’t safe from the chaos. Six months after arriving in the Congo, Dian is arrested by soldiers who are suspicious of her motives for being in the country. After two weeks in prison, Dian bribes her way out and sneaks across the border to neighboring Uganda.

Soon after Louis Leakey will advise Dian to avoid the Congo in the future. But Dian will be determined not to give up on her research. So, she’ll start again on the other side of the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda—but there too she’ll soon discover that her new base is just as dangerous as her old one.

Act Two

It’s September 1967 in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, three months after Dian Fossey escaped from the Congo.

As the light fades, 35-year-old Dian unloads her bags from the back of her trusty battered Land Rover. With the help of two Rwandan assistants, she then begins erecting a tent. And by nightfall, the shelter is finished. Dian intends to build a permanent cabin here in the rainforest eventually, but this tent will have to do for now.

Since arriving in Rwanda a few days ago, Dian has scoured the Virunga Mountains for a suitable location for her new research base. After being forced out of the Congo, Dian wanted somewhere isolated where she didn’t draw attention from the locals. Earlier today, she spotted this clearing in the forest and decided it suited her needs. It’s 10,000 feet above sea level, well away from the nearest village, and within trekking distance of several known mountain gorilla families.

But Dian soon discovers that her remote location brings challenges. The mountain gorillas in this part of the Virunga Mountains are less habituated to human contact. It takes Dian far longer to get close enough to observe their natural behavior. But Dian uses the tricks of the trade she learned earlier and stands back at a distance until the gorillas are used to her presence. Then, when they allow her closer, she gently mirrors their movements and even tries copying their calls and vocalizations. Eventually, they seem to accept her.

Dian now has a unique opportunity to study the day-to-day aspects of mountain gorilla life that have been a mystery to humans until now. She studies the creatures’ hierarchies and social relationships. She observes how female gorillas transfer from group to group to ensure the gene pool remains healthy, but that male gorillas never intrude on a rival group.

And it’s not just the gorillas’ interaction with each other that Dian studies. She also documents the impact of human poaching. Although few Rwandans live in this part of the mountains, criminal gangs do journey here to target the wildlife. Sometimes they shoot the gorillas for food. Other times they set traps for antelopes, but gorillas stumble into them instead. Some gangs even steal infant gorillas from their families, in the hope of selling them to zoos around the world.

Dian complains to the Rwandan government about these poachers, but she gets little support. There are government-employed rangers who are supposed to protect the gorillas. But they are paid so poorly that they are easily bribed, and poachers effectively have free rein in the mountains.

And after several years of seeing these poachers inflict horrible harm, the death of one gorilla hits Dian especially hard. On New Year’s Day 1978, one of her researchers discovers the headless and handless body of a gorilla Dian called Digit. Dian had followed Digit for seven years. And his death marks the first time that a gorilla from one of Dian’s observation groups has been killed by poachers.

Dian is grief-stricken—and angry. She decides that the best way to save the mountain gorillas is to fight back. So, she makes Digit the face of an international fundraising campaign and sets about writing a book to raise awareness of the mountain gorillas’ plight. When it’s finished and released in 1983, Gorillas in the Mist becomes a bestseller. The book royalties along with other donations pay for independent anti-poaching patrols in the mountains. And in one four-month period, Dian’s patrollers remove over 900 poaching traps, while the government’s rangers don’t report a single one.

But Dian’s patrols can not stop every poaching expedition, and one raid to steal two infant gorillas ends in a massacre of 20 adult gorillas. Those infants are seized at the border and taken into safekeeping. But the Rwandan government doesn’t return the infants to the wild. Instead, the government sells them to foreign zoos - only further confirming to the poachers that their business model is a lucrative one.

Increasingly frustrated by the government’s reluctance to tackle the problem, Dian decides to take more radical action. Her anti-poaching patrols start shooting livestock belonging to villages that Dian believes are encroaching on the mountains. She tries to intimidate the locals by claiming she knows black magic. She has her men burn huts she believes are used by poachers. And when they manage to capture illegal hunters, Dian is even accused of beating and torturing them before handing them over to the authorities.

Dian Fossey’s increasingly violent confrontations with the poachers mean that the Virunga Mountains will become a lawless frontier. But in the fight between the gorillas’ hunters and their protectors, soon, Dian herself will also become a target.

Act Three

It’s the evening of December 26th, 1985, at Dian Fossey's cabin in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, 18 years after she began a study of the country’s mountain gorillas.

Now 53 years old, Dian is at her desk in her cluttered and ramshackle two-room hut. The weak light of her kerosene lamp isn’t much to work by, but it’s all she has. Dian downs her drink, something strong and foul-tasting, but she’s used to it by now. Then, she gets to her feet a little unsteady and is searching for the bottle on the shelf, when she hears a sudden tearing crash coming from her bedroom. She lurches through the dark cabin and swiftly opens the bedroom door. There, she’s confronted by a man with a machete, climbing through a hole he’s wrenched open in the corrugated metal walls of the hut. Dian hurls herself at the bedside table, grabbing for the handgun that she always keeps close by while she sleeps.

As she scrambles clumsily to pull the gun and its ammunition from the drawer, the man with the machete pulls himself into the room. Dian whirls around, but she doesn’t get the chance to even load her gun. The man’s machete glints in the moonlight as it swiftly scythes through the darkness.

Dian’s bloody body is discovered by her house servant the next morning. During the investigation that follows, no poachers are questioned in connection with Dian’s murder. Instead, the police concentrate on her research team and one suspect in particular: Dian’s American grad student assistant Wayne McGuire. And Wayne is about to be arrested when he is tipped off by the American embassy, and he flees before he can be taken into custody. That doesn’t stop a Rwandan court putting him on trial in absentia. And despite a lack of compelling evidence, Wayne is convicted of Dian’s murder, with the court claiming that he killed Dian to steal valuable research material from her.

Wayne will always proclaim his innocence, and American authorities will refuse to extradite him. And with a sentence of death hanging over him, Wayne will never return to Rwanda. In contrast, Dian will never leave. Her body will be buried in a graveyard close to her camp alongside several of the gorillas that died during the years she studied them.

Although Dian’s life ended abruptly, her legacy will live on. Her campaign against illegal hunting in the mountains of Africa will receive a boost in 1988 when Dian’s memoir Gorillas in the Mist is made into an award-winning Hollywood movie. And a new generation of researchers inspired by Dian will take up the challenge continuing her work. They will ensure that the still endangered mountain gorillas she loved so much are not forgotten and that Dian herself is remembered for far more than her violent and premature death on December 26th, 1985.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 27th, 1904. The Duke of York’s Theater in London, England, hosts the first performance of Peter Pan.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.