Journal of the Dead: A Story of Friendship and Murder in the New Mexico Desert

"The man of knowledge," Nietzsche is said to have remarked, "must not only be able to love his enemies; he must also be able to hate his friends." Indeed, it's a thirst for existential knowledge and adventure that unexpectedly pushes two bosom friends beyond the brink of disaster--and ultimately calls into question the very meaning of friendship--in Journal of the Dead. Jacob Kersten's riveting account—expanding on an article originally published in Maxim--reconstructs the true-crime story of a baffling murder that took place one desperate morning in 1999 in New Mexico's Rattlesnake Canyon. Raffi Kodikian and David Coughlin, having lost their way after embarking on a casual, short-term hike in the desert, find themselves out of hope, on the verge of fatal dehydration. According to a journal kept by Kodikian, they decide on a mutual suicide pact to spare each other excruciating pain before an inevitable death. Yet Kodikian survives after stabbing his friend. Soon afterward, he is rescued by rangers and subsequently charged with the murder of his best friend.

I killed and buried my best friend today ...

When authorities found Raffi Kodikian -- barely alive -- four days after he and his friend David Coughlin became lost in Rattlesnake Canyon, they made a grim and shocking discovery. Kodikian freely admitted that he had stabbed Coughlin twice in the heart. Had there been a darker motive than mercy? And how could anyone, under any circumstances, kill his best friend?

Armed with the journal Kodikian and Coughlin carried into Rattle- snake Canyon, Jason Kersten re-creates in riveting detail those fateful days that led to the killing in an infamously unforgiving wilderness.