A group of business partners who were thinking about buying a piece of land on the south end of Camano Island surveyed the property on Saturday and found a brutally murdered woman and a bunker full of weapons.
It gave them chills.
"When we first came up here we saw the hole and it was like, like what the hell is this," said Matt Curry.
They found a bunker dug into a hillside, accessed by a ladder and big enough to live in. Still visible on Tuesday were water jugs and a cot.
But that was just the beginning.
The men also found a trail of unused sandbags that led to a sleeping bag with one end tied off.
Inside was what witnesses said was a woman's brutally murdered body.
"When you see something that looks like it's from a war scene that you weren't expecting, there's no explaining...it's just unbelievable," said witness Bob Johnson.
Investigators are now trying to determine what went on at the scene off Tamarack Lane.
They say that bunker held guns and ammunition, and that the victim appeared to have been targeted.
"You just start thinking about the family. Who was the person? Who was the family," said a Johnson, still visibly shaken three days after the discovery. "How is this gonna affect everybody?"
A dilapidated camper with evidence tape on the door and two cats scurrying about remained on the property, Tuesday, along with a couple of motorcycles and two other vehicles. Neighbors said the property was being rented and two men and a woman occasionally stayed there.
There was no sign of anyone Tuesday.
Bob Johnson couldn't help but think he and his friends may have unwittingly helped preserve a crime scene that may lead to the killer being caught.
"I think we possibly disturbed the person. I don't think they left that body there to be found like that. I think they were in the act of doing something to get rid of it."
An autopsy was performed on the body Tuesday. Island County Sheriff Mark Brown said there was no additional information to release.
