Tweaker.
I’m saying pot growers. Anybody who has ever been in the woods of Northern California knows that the most dangerous place in the world is somebody’s marijuana plantation. A lot of them are run by outlaw biker gangs, and others are run by crazy free-lance criminals who shouldn’t even be out of jail.
I had a friend who was a state policeman and he didn’t even dare to go up there unaccompanied for routine police business. I would assume this forest in Kentucky is the same. It’s probably in a remote area where the only law enforcement is either the sheriffs or the state police (meaning they don’t come by very often) and this poor guy just turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time.