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U.S. Route 50 (US 50) is a transcontinental highway in the United States, stretching from West Sacramento, California, in the west to Ocean City, Maryland, on the east coast. The Nevada portion crosses the center of the state and was named "The Loneliest Road in America" by Life magazine in July 1986. The name was intended as a pejorative, but Nevada officials seized it as a marketing slogan. The name originates from large desolate areas traversed by the route, with few or no signs of civilization. The highway crosses several large desert valleys separated by numerous mountain ranges towering over the valley floors, in what is known as the Basin and Range province of the Great Basin.
On June 6, 1994, twenty-three-year-old Christene Skubish and her three-year-old son, Nick, were driving along Highway 50 in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California when they vanished without a trace. Christene was a single mother who had recently earned her paralegal certification and was also hopeful about marrying Nick's father. She left her family's home near Sacramento on June 5, 1994, headed for Carson City, Nevada. She was reported missing on June 8 by her stepfather, Dave Stautzenbach, who called the police to make a missing-persons report on her disappearance. An investigation began into this case, but no leads initially turned up.
Five days after Christene and Nick disappeared, a woman named Deborah Hoyt and her husband were driving along Highway 50 late at night. They were singing to keep themselves awake. Suddenly, Deborah saw a naked woman laying on the side of the road. His face was toward it, she was laying on her side, her knees were slightly bent, she had one arm underneath her head, and the other arm on her head. The Hoyts were dumbfounded. They thought it might have been an obscene practical joke or a trap to hijack their car. They stopped at the nearest phone booth to call the police.
Within minutes, two cruisers were at the site where Deborah had seen the woman's body. However, without a landmark to pinpoint the exact location, the authorities found nothing. The next morning, some began to suspect that the sighting had something to do with the disappearance of Christene and Nick. At the urging of their families, Deputy Rich Strasser decided to investigate further. He figured that it might be easier to spot something in the daylight.
Deborah had pinpointed a particularly dangerous stretch of Highway 50 known as "Bullion Bend". As Strasser drove in the area, he noticed a child's black tennis shoe on the side of the road. The area next to it was a steep embankment. He decided to pull over and search there further. At the bottom of the ravine, he discovered the twisted remains of Christene's car. He checked her and discovered that she was dead. He went to the passenger side to check Nick, who was laying in a fetal position naked.
Strasser assumed that Nick had also died. However, when he touched his neck to find a pulse, it appeared that he took a breath. Strasser immediately called for an ambulance. Nick had been alone in the car for five days. Police believe that sometime after 2am on June 6, Christene fell asleep at the wheel. She drove off the road and crashed her car at the bottom of the ravine. Due to the incline, motorists drove past the accident scene for days, unaware of it. Strasser said he had spotted the boy's tennis shoe on the side of the highway Saturday, and then found the car. He believes the boy at some point climbed from the car to the highway, and then returned to the car. That is the only explanation for the shoe being on the road,"
Christene had been killed instantly; Nick was all alone with no way out and no one to talk to. Christene's mother believes that he spent the time talking to her, unaware that she was dead. Against all odds, he had survived five days of blistering heat and four nights of cold, dark solitude. Doctors who examined him believed that he would have had only an hour or two left to live had he not been rescued.
The strange circumstances that saved Nick's life seem to defy explanation. If Deborah had not seen the naked woman, he would have not survived. It seems impossible for that to have been Christene, as she was still fully clothed and wearing her seat belt. Furthermore, Strasser believes that she was most likely killed on impact. Deborah is certain that she saw a naked woman on the side of the road. She and Christene's family believes that it was her spirit who saved Nick that day.