March 24, 2021 • 38 mins
Journalist Jonathan Spollen disappeared in Rishikesh, India in 2012, and though there’s still no evidence of his death, what was found where he went missing has raised many questions and keeps this cold case shrouded in mystery.
Jonathan Spollen Show Notes:
Jessica Ravitz ~ Freelance journalist and former senior writer for CNN Digital. Here is her CNN article that features Jonathan Spollen.
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati (Sadhviji) ~ Renowned spiritual leader and motivational speaker. She lives at Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
BBC article and video featuring police investigator, Kundan Negi. The article is titled, ‘I believe Jonathan is still alive.’
Amanda Vicary ~ True Crime expert and Psychologist
Astray Production Team:
School of Humans // iHeartRadio
Caroline Slaughter ~ Host, Writer, Producer
Ankita Anand ~ Producer
Gabbie Watts ~ Supervising Producer
Jason Shannon ~ Composer
Harper Harris ~ Sound Design, Audio Mixer
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of humans. The holy city of Rishikesh, India buzzes
with those seeking spiritual sustenance. Elabrad ashrums full of foreign
revelers echo with the holy prayers and songs of sat Soong,
(00:28):
led by a Guru or Sadu draped in saffron robes
and guiding their devotees with a contemplative voice of authority.
Incense infuses the air during Puja, a religious ceremony performed
on the gats of the River Ganges. A line of
men adorned an intricately designed robe with s gaze out
(00:49):
at the holy water, rhythmically chanting while they present their
offerings in a circular motion to the Hindu deities they worship.
And the sprawl of yoga studios that have burgeoned in
succession after Rishikesh was recognized as the birthplace of yoga,
thanks him part to the father of transcendental meditation, the Maharishi,
(01:11):
whose foresight and wisdom lured the Beatles to Rashakesh, where
holiness hangs heavy in the air and the simplicity the
Beatles were forced to adopt that the Maharishi's ashrum led
to a creative clarity that birthed the White album. It's
February third, twenty twelve. Twenty eight year old Jonathan Spalen
(01:35):
walks over the narrow, heavily trafficked bridge. He's got pale
skin from his Irish lineage, dark hair of that hangs
around his shoulders, and a beard evidence of the over
two months he's been traveling through India. But unlike the
other Western seekers he passes who are carrying yoga mats
or in a daze from deep meditation, Jonathan doesn't romanticize
(01:58):
the spiritual offerings of Rishikesh. On his last trip to India,
he interviewed Pralad Johnny, a wiry monk with wide blue
eyes and a vacant gaze. If prala Johnny looks a
little out of it, it's because he and his followers
claim that he lived without food or water for eighty years.
He was called a breathrean monk because he survived on air.
(02:24):
Jonathan met with Johnny to write an article about him
while the monk was still alive, and though some people
assumed that he was a follower, Jonathan was not influenced
by Johnny. As a journalist, it was just another job.
Jonathan has worked in journalism and Cairo, Abu Dhabi and
Hong Kong. In a two thousand and ten article he
(02:46):
wrote for The National about Nanog, a Kashmiri village, his
curious and empathic prose easily drop readers into the day
to day of the Kashmiris, not only giving us a
taste of their lives, but an awareness of the peaceful,
simplicity of their culture, which Jonathan states in his article,
I knew I was idealizing romanticizing life in Nananog, but
(03:10):
the real benefits of living there were too great and
too many to ignore. As Westerners consumed with our phones, tablets,
the overall noise of our culture and the expectations, it's
easy to idealize an escape, which is something many parts
of India can offer. On this trip, Jonathan's third to India,
(03:34):
he's at a crossroads in his life and as contemplating
whether to continue journalism or go into documentary film. This
question hangs in the air as he prepares for a
solo track he's going to make into the dense wooded
terrain of the Himalayas outside Rishikesh. His visa is about
to run out, so instead of going to Delhi as
originally planned, this will be his last hurrah in India.
(03:57):
He calls his mom, Linda's balin back in Dublin to
tell her about his track. They're close and have been
keeping up on his travels through India a text and
sporadic calls here and there. When Linda hears of his
planned a trek through the Himalayas solo, she asks that
he consider going with a guide. Jonathan shrugs off from
eternal instinct with a simple answer, I want to do
(04:18):
it on my own, kind of a spiritual thing. If
you google India syndrome, Jonathan's Wikipedia page is listed under
the definition, and part of that is because of this
throwaway comment he made to his mom before a solo
trek he would never return from. As we've discussed, India
(04:39):
syndrome is defined as a psychosis that hits Westerners in
India seeking some sort of spiritual enlightenment, and through expert interviews,
we've deciphered that India syndrome is a theory, not a
medical diagnosis. But it's also a speculation that's plagued Jonathan's
disappearance since he was reported missing on February twenty seventh,
(05:00):
twenty twelve, I wanted to interview Jonathan's mom, Linda on
her thoughts about her son's widely publicized comment about his
solo track being a spiritual thing. Was it blown out
of context or was her son actually seeking something and
the solitude of the Himalayas. Linda and I connected and
(05:22):
spoke several times the past few months, and I've heard
her thoughts on many things, but I never got an
official interview, and therefore will not be sharing our communication
and this episode. And this is why, Hey, hello, you
sleep deprived as hell. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know.
I mean, I mean, I know where this anxiety is
(05:44):
coming from. But this is Gabby as Stray, supervising producer.
I'm in my voice over booth. She's in her room.
We live literally two blocks away from each other, and
this is what we do during the pandemic. We meet
on zoom in separate homes in the same neighborhood and
interview people. But today we're having a different conversation. Hi,
(06:05):
here's Akita, our third in the Estray producing trio. I
don't know if I've told you this, but I did.
I loved you a voice moment, but Linda dropped out again.
Jonathan Spalin's story jump started this podcast, a podcast focused
on India, a country halfway around the world, which made
(06:26):
this past year during COVID pretty tricky, especially while navigating
our original plan to investigate Jonathan's disappearance on that solo
track through the Himalayas. Yeah, I heard that, and you
were thinking of your integrity, doubting it. After the investigation
blew up because of pandemic related reasons, Linda backed out,
(06:47):
which was tough because she and I had formed a
relationship and I had come to value her opinion along
with genuinely wanting to help her answer questions surrounding her
son's disappearance. Ultimately, I knew how important Linda's voice would
be in telling Jonathan's stories, so I re engaged her
in the process and had at least two episodes devoted
to Jonathan because his story is one that really impacted me.
(07:10):
But she backed out again literally two days ago, which
just put us in a scramble. We've been working so
hard to make her feel comfortable with this process, even
sharing the outline with her, and I just feel like
she's disappointed in the process. But also, and I think
Gabby you might have said this. I think she's also grieving.
This is the month where Jonathan went missing. And but
(07:33):
I just feel like we've built this relationship and now
it's just blown up, and like I've disappointed her, and
then it makes me feel like I'm a bad person,
Like am I exploiting her son? You know? Like I
don't know. I just feel really I feel really torn
about it. Obviously I was emotional after she backed out.
(07:53):
I questioned myself my motives for doing this podcast, the
intimate human stories I'm sharing of these men who have disappeared.
When you investigate stories like this, you get pulled in
and cases form relationships with the families. And that's tough
because our job is to expose information, and sometimes there's
conflict in that clarity, because people don't want that information
(08:16):
to lead to further speculations when they don't even have
clear answers themselves. Throughout this process, I felt like I've
been skating this line between entertainment, which you all tune
in for, an ethics, which should be at the core
of all journalism, especially in true crime investigations. But when
Linda dropped out, I questioned all of it, and even
(08:40):
writing his episodes really hard. I mean, you're trying to
answer to your questions and unfortunately you have to do
that by using examples, and Jonathan is an example of it.
So you're not doing anything that's unethical because you are
putting in the work to answer questions and like make
a contribution to our conversations around spirituality. So that's Gabby
(09:01):
talking me off a ledge, but it's also a peak
behind the curtains blow up. In true crime, you're dealing
with loss, be it someone's disappearance or death, and as
podcast facilitators, we have to navigate the heavy emotions and
grief that surround that, which can either fuel an investigation
or put an end to it. This stopped being only
(09:23):
about Jonathan a long time ago, but now it's not
even like he's the main person around who the entire
story revolves. There are many more people now, there are
many more families and keep his right. Originally this was
supposed to be a single true crime investigation about Jonathan's
spawn's disappearance, but after it ended the first time, the
(09:45):
investigation morphed into something bigger as we found more stories
and felt compelled to examine deeper questions. I wanted to
get to the why rather than just unravel the how.
Though the how in Jonathan's case is still extremely ambiguous,
which for this episode, Linda wants to keep that way,
(10:05):
and honestly, we don't know what happened to Jonathan, you know,
and she's never taken spirituality or the sort of spiritual
question off the table. She's always been like, well, I
want to keep everything open. So I guess I'm just
trying to be really aware of that, like, as we
sort of come into the era of true crime, how
can we have bridge of the gap between entertainment and ethics.
(10:28):
I'm going through my own existential crisis about how to
roll out this episode. I respect Linda wanting to steer
clear of assumptions and sensationalism, and honestly, because there's nobody
it's not fair to adhere to one speculation. And though
Ryan Chambers parents, especially as brother Aaron, have leaned into
the larium theory, they've never closed the door on any
(10:49):
of the other possibilities surrounding Ryan's disappearance and Jonathan's episode.
Instead of deep diving into a story with Linda, which
we had planned, to do. I'm going to tell his
story with someone Linda respected. Yeah, we had a really
nice conversation, and I know I remember her saying that
she felt like the story had been misrepresented, you know,
(11:11):
other people trying to sensationalize things that they didn't have
answers to right, And so I was honored that she
was willing to talk to me. This is journalist Jessica
Rabbits speaking about a conversation she had with Linda that
informed the twenty fourteen CNN article she wrote about Jonathan's disappearance.
(11:31):
She didn't pump up the drama or settle in any
one speculation, so out of respect for Linda, I think
it's only fair to have Rabbits, a journalist who I've
also come to appreciate, helped tell Jonathan's story. A colleague
heard I was going to India, to rishie Kesh in particular,
(11:53):
and she came up and told me about a former
colleague of hers and her previous job who had gone
missing in rishie Kesh, and that was Jonathan Spalin. In
twenty fourteen, It's traveled to Rashikesh for a poignant article
she wrote about her own spiritual awakening like Jonathan, she
witnessed this spiritual mecca firsthand. But Risha Kesh is not
(12:17):
all love and light. There's something dark lurking there too,
being in Rishikesh. I mean just it's a spiritual Disneyland,
and everyone there is trying to teach and be a
guru and gather a following and maybe rip people off financially.
Like you know, there's so much that you could fall
(12:37):
victim to. This is the more ominous side of Rashakesh
when we see all too often in the States the
consumerism of spirituality, which can lead to false prophets, scams,
and a handful of other frauds used debate trusting seekers.
I remember very, you know, kind of stopping in my
tracks when I saw the Jonathan Spallen poster, and I
(13:00):
think it's because, you know, I had his face on it,
and I'd seen his face, you know, in searching for
stories about him online, but it was very faded when
I saw it. Jonathan had been missing for at least
two years at this point. At the top of Jessica's article,
there is a picture of Jonathan's missing poster. On the
(13:20):
poster are two photos of Jonathan and one his dark
brown hair is down, his charming bearded face smiling, his
eyes connected to him. Ever is taking the photo. He
looks easy going, present, like someone you'd sit down for
fifteen minutes with and lose two hours. And the other photo,
Jonathan's hair is pulled back, he has the sunglasses on
(13:42):
his head, He's not smiling, his eyes are detached. He's
somewhere else. David Hammerback, the academic I interviewed in episode two,
commented on these missing posters, saying they looked like they
belonged on the side of a milk carton. He believes
Jonathan was painted as a victim by the media, with
the perpetrator of the crime being India. Though I'd agree
(14:07):
that Jonathan was not a victim of India at the country,
Who's to say Jonathan wasn't a victim of something or
some one dangerous while he was there. Though there has
been no evidence of Jonathan's body, there was evidence found
nearest belongings, evidence that led some authorities to believe that
Jonathan didn't disappear by accident but by choice. A broad
(14:43):
shouldered Indian police officer walks through dense woods. He speaks
directly to a camera following him on a trail of
lush greenery, brambles, rocks shutting through the earth. There's a
look of concern in his kind eyes as he maps
out the spot near Garuchati Waterfall, a hot spot for
tourists and Rishikesh, especially during the monsoon when the waterfall
(15:06):
flows at seven different levels. This is also the spot
where Jonathan's belongings were found. This is Kundaneggi, the lead
officer on Jonathan Spalin's case. It's been five years since
Jonathan has reported missing on February twenty seventh, two thousand
and twelve, which was two and a half weeks after
(15:28):
Jonathan's last conversation with his mother, Linda, when he told
her he was going on a track through the Himalayas
alone and that it was kind of a spiritual thing.
A March eleventh of twenty twelve, an American couple discovered
Jonathan's belongings in a wooded clearing not far off the
(15:50):
main trail where the officer Kundaneggi is now leading a
BBC camera crew. The belongings consisted of a bag with
Jonathan's passport, phone charger, clothing and some Hong Kong coins
still inside. According to a BBC article written by Roland Hughes,
a colleague of Jonathan's, and Abu Dhabi, there was also
(16:11):
a hospital record and ultrasound scan in the bag, which
showed that Jonathan had been suffering from kidney stones at
some point during his stay in India. Next to his belongings,
a sleeping bag was laid out with a book on
top of it. Nothing had been touched. It looked like
a site that was set up to come back to,
not disappear from. It was also reported that people who
(16:36):
had seen Jonathan and the weeks leading up to his
disappearance had noticed he'd lost weight and appeared frail. They
also said he was walking with a slight limp due
to a recent fall on a trail. So if this
is the case, he wasn't in the best condition to
endure a strenuous solo track. This seems obvious, but what
(16:56):
stumped authorities, leading them to question if Jonathan chose to disappear,
was evidence found a few days after his belongings a
route to the city of Patna. What was found on
a narrow trail or bawled up identification cards and papers,
including Jonathan's health card and Hong Kong travel pass. According
(17:18):
to Hughes's BBC article, these discarded identification items pointed to
one conclusion. Jonathan was doing what some foreign seekers do
in rashaksh deliberately shedding his possessions and pass life to
renounce who he was so he could follow a new,
enlightened path. And according to Hughes, the photocopies of articles
(17:41):
on spiritual matters found in Jonathan's bag indicate that this
was something he was considering. Directly after Jonathan's disappearance, a
local newspaper in India said the case was new proof
of the phenomenon of individuals, mostly male, disappearing at the
religious hotspots of India and around Knoxman Julia Suspension Bridge.
(18:05):
The article quoted a senior police officer who ascribed the
trend to renunciation fueled by spiritual awakening. So I think
that originally I was reached out to just in terms
of did you know him? Do you have any idea
what might have happened to him? This is Sudvi Bagwati
(18:29):
Saraswati or said Viji for short. She's a spiritual leader
living in India who fueled by a profound spiritual awakening
did renounce her life in California in nineteen ninety six.
For one she felt called to in Rishikesh, India, where
Jonathan disappeared, Saidviji has the presence of someone touched by
(18:52):
a higher power. When she appeared on the zoom with
the pristine sounds of nature surrounding her, I could suddenly
breathe deeper. So I think they then probably wanted to
keep talking to just get some idea of some clarity here.
I was another foreign person who had made a decision
(19:13):
to renounce, and so they may have thought that I
could give some advice in that way. Sadvigi is Hindu,
and through renouncing, she exchanged worldly assets for spiritual ones.
But was this Jonathan's intention? That's what authorities in Jonathan's
family wanted to find out, which is why they reached
(19:34):
out to Sadvigi after his disappearance, to get some sense
of understanding around someone choosing to renounce their past life
in the West for one in India, which, as we've discussed,
some of the evidence near Jonathan's belongings points to a
little bit later, they ended up finding papers and passport
(19:55):
kind of torn up and thrown along pathways somewhere, and
when after a lot of searching, they didn't find his
body somewhere. Usually, if someone drowns in Gana, either accidentally
or on purpose, eventually a body will wash up downstream,
not after that long. Genga is also known as the
(20:18):
Ganges or Mother Gaya. It's the holy river that runs
through rashakesh As. They were not having any luck with
any clues suggesting that he would have drowned in the river,
and they were getting more clues that either he or
someone had thrown his identity papers around. They started thinking
(20:40):
that maybe he had wandered off, just wandered off into
the Himlaas. Again, this sounds like a Chris McCandless tale,
an Eastern into the wild, with someone retreating into the
solitude of nature. But there is a romanticism around this
idea of renouncing one's life. It's a clean slate, exchanging
(21:01):
the noise and societal expectations of the West for the
pea and purity of the East, which is something Jonathan
apparently idealized when he wrote his article about life in
the Kashmiri village nerinag But what a longing for peaceful
simplicity make someone renounce their life, leaving their beloved family, friends,
(21:22):
pets behind, choosing to vanish. So no one renounces their life.
What you renounce is a way that you were formerly
identified in your own mind, a way that you thought
of yourself certain roles or relationships or ways of living.
(21:48):
We renounce sensual pleasures, so we take vows of celibacy.
We renounce ownership, so we take vows of simplicity. We
dedicate our lives to God. We renounce the idea of
a family being just you know, three or four or
(22:10):
five members. When we speak about renunciation of the family,
what it means is that we recognize that the whole
world is our family vasude. This is a Sanskrit phrase
in India meaning the entire earth is our family or
one family. So renunciation is not this romanticized idea of
(22:35):
leaving your past life behind. Choose a simpler one said,
VG renounced to be in service of a higher calling
and the world. So if Jonathan renounced, he would be
of the world, not someone who dropped out of it. Also,
there's no doubt that Jonathan was deeply connected to his
mother Linda. Their bond was evident not only from the
(22:58):
way Linda speaks about her son, but because of his
consistent communication with her when he traveled, and this third
trip to India was no exception. There are times during
his travels where he would drop out for a week
or so due to bad cell phone service or to
conserve his phone's battery, which is something he warned Linda
about on their call before he took off on his
solo track. But dropping out of his life entirely seemed
(23:22):
out of character for Jonathan. I wasn't able to speak
with Jonathan's father, David Greene, but I do know when
he was reported missing, David flew to India to assist
with the search effort, and according to an Irish Times
article written in April twenty twelve, a month after Jonathan disappeared,
David was quoted saying, there is some evidence to suggest
(23:46):
Jonathan was interested in a spiritual pathway. My trip to
India shed a light on him. For me, I have
at times thought I was looking at somebody completely different
to the son that I knew, to suddenly discover that
there may be a whole spiritual aspect to his life,
though he hadn't really touched on is astonishing. Linda Spalen
(24:07):
and David Greene have not spoken to Jonathan in nine years,
which I can imagine for parents who deeply loved their
son and fervently searched for him, would be complete anguish.
According to Sadvigi, the fact that Jonathan has not reached
out to his parents says even further evidence that he
did not renounce in the spiritual sense. My Guru made
(24:30):
it very clear to me. He said, Ay, I had
to take their blessings before I took some nas, but
b I also stay in touch with them. Sadvigi is
speaking about the communication she had with her family before
she renounced and her ongoing relationship with them. When we
speak about renouncing the family, it has to do with
(24:55):
renouncing those relationships and attachments that thwart us on our
spiritual path, those that hold us hostage in a specific identity,
in a specific attachment, in a specific role, in favor
of the spiritual freedom of living as soul spirit consciousness.
(25:21):
That's where the renouncing of family in the vows of
segnas come in. But it's not about bringing pain and
suffering to those who have given you birth. That wouldn't
be a spiritual thing. Mostly, it's important to realize that
renounciation is not running away, it's embracing something very very
(25:47):
beautiful and very real, very true. It's not a moving
away from it's a moving toward. So if Jonathan didn't renounce,
like some authorities and media speculated, then what happened to
his body? Garachati is one of the most popular tourist
(26:09):
spots in rashaksh so it's unusual that while Jonathan's belongings
were found, he was not. Kundanegi, the lead officer on
Jonathan's case, ends the BBC video shot three years after
Jonathan was reported missing, saying I believe that he is
(26:33):
alive and I'm still hopeful that we will find him.
I mean, who knows. In two thousand and one, seventeen
years after his disappearance, when his parents and the Austrian
embassy in India had lost all hope of his being alive,
an Austrian national reappeared, saying he went missing by choice
(26:54):
in India so he could live in complete peace. This
case was reported and a twenty eighteen article for the
Tribune in India. There was also someone they talked to
who said that he was reading Shanta Dam the book,
and so they thought, well, maybe that inspired him to
kind of disappear off the grid. That book found on
(27:16):
top of Jonathan's sleeping bag. It's been reported that it
was Shantam. If reading Catcher in the Rye is a
write of passage for angsty teens, that's Shantam for foreigners
in India looking to reinvent themselves or fall off the grid.
Influenced by the life of the author Gregory David Roberts,
the two thousand and three book Shantam follows a convict
(27:38):
to escapes an Australian prison and flees to the chaos
of India, where he chooses to vanish into the slums
of Bombay. He becomes absorbed by India, living through many
significant experiences that eventually lead him to build an honest life.
The title Shantaram has spiritual significance. It means man of
(27:59):
God's Peace, which is a name given to the protagonist
Len by an Indian woman and a native him and village.
Though Jonathan was spotted with Chantaram before he went missing,
a book that reveres this idea of falling off the grid,
(28:22):
it's yet another speculation, not a fact, which I can
only imagine would be hard for Linda when I talked
to her. I think she still needed to hold onto hope.
I don't know where she's at now. This is Jessica
Rabbits again speaking about her conversation with Linda. I remember
distinctly her talking about how she loved the idea of,
(28:45):
you know, if she could believe that he was sitting
in a cave in the Himalayas meditating like that was
a beautiful way to think about where he might be.
And I, you know, I'm not I'd never had children
of my own. I cannot understand the pain that she
had been grappling with and and now yet accepting that
(29:06):
he might be gone forever was where she needed to be.
And I respected that. I mean, I understood that, you know,
the not knowing at least allowed her to hold onto
a shred of hope. And who's to say that hope
is unjustified at this point? When examining what happened to
Jonathan Spalen, all possibilities are open, which means every speculation, theory,
(29:31):
or synchronicity needs to be considered, including something all three
of the missing men, Ryan, Justin, and Jonathan had in common.
The first three stories we've covered in this podcast have
some things in common. Yes, Jonathan, Justin, and Ryan were
all Westerners who disappeared in India, but there are also
(29:53):
three men. And you rarely hear stories about men and
true crime. These mysteries or murderers usually revolve around women.
I brought in true crime expert psychologist Amanda Vickery to
talk about this, not only because it's interesting, but she
might be able to pinpoint some other commonalities. So if
(30:14):
you look at crime statistics, men are much more likely
to be the victim of a violent crime. People kind
of get this skewed idea of a women are out
there getting killed all the time, and also, of course
a skewed idea of how likely it is to happen
which I fall victim to all the time. I convince
I'm going to be killed by a serial killer on
a daily basis, when rationally I know the statistics of
(30:36):
that happening are very very slim. But yes, men are
for sure more likely to be the victim of a
violent crime, but not the types of crimes that are
covered or focused on and the media as much, not
always as sensational, which is what's interesting because the cases
you're looking into of men missing in India is very unusual.
(30:57):
We don't often get as much coverage of men going missing,
as you said, compared to women, it's less likely to
happen in a sort of sensational manner. All of the
cases we've shared so far on this podcast feature men,
and their stories are sensational. But that's not just because
of the media's influence. It's because of the mystery surrounding
(31:20):
coal cases with nobody, little evidence, and zero answers. My
next question to Amanda was about risk taking, a trait
that was obvious in justin Alexander Schetler's makeup and possibly
in Jonathan's. If you give someone a personality survey, men
are much more likely to be risk takers and to
be sensation seekers and things like that. And that's something
(31:43):
I'm actually investigating in a study I have going on
right now. I'm still collecting data on it. I'm curious
to see if men and women who are more into
sensation seeking and risk taking things like that, are they
more interested in true crime podcasts. And that's something I
don't know the answer too yet. It's ongoing. I guess
I ultimately throw that question back on you, the listener.
(32:03):
I'm admittedly not risk over. I mean, I'm doing this podcast,
but I also listened to true crime in the same
way many women do, not just to unravel the how,
but to understand the why. My research showed that women
people in general, and women especially are into crime oftentimes
because it's almost like a survival factor. They're learning what
(32:26):
happens so that they can prevent it from happening to them.
And I sometimes wondered the unsolved cases that should make
it even more relevant because this person or whatever's happening
could still be out there, which is one of the
reasons I wanted to investigate Jonathan's disappearance in this podcast.
What if Jonathan's not alive and whatever or whomever got
(32:46):
to him is still out there. Yeah, he definitely had speculations.
Jessica Rabbit's track down Kundanegi, the lead officer on Jonathan's investigation,
for an interview in twenty fourteen, two years after Jonathan's disappearance.
Nagi was also on Ryan Chambers case, but like I said,
(33:07):
the Chambers didn't get a lot of help from the
Indian authorities and weren't as supported by Naggie. As Linda Us,
Linda will forever be grateful for Naggie's persistence, whatever the outcome.
She considers Naggie a man of great integrity and determination
in a system which is gravely lacking in resources from
a Western perspective. But Naggie, like any police officer immersed
(33:30):
in a cold case, does have speculations about what happened
to Jonathan. Oh. He wondered if maybe Jonathan Spalen had
wandered off with a sadu or a holy man who
practiced black magic, for example. I'm going to check in
with Ikita about this because it sounds sort of like
(33:50):
the Justin Alexander Schetler scenario, and I want to get
her thoughts on this whole black magic thing. First of all,
there is no scientific basis for anything called black magic,
but among people who do believe in it, the general
bust up enough. A black magic practitioner would be someone
who knows a certain magical or supernatural rituals that can
(34:13):
be used to harm someone else. That is the typical perception.
You know, Justin went with the sado on this spiritual track.
We don't know if this guy practiced quote unquote black magic.
But I guess my question is why would a Westerner
seek out someone who practices black magic. I guess it
(34:34):
would be the lure of mystery and also a journalist
mindset of finding out what really lies beneath something that
has not been explored enough, or something that claims to me, say, supernatural.
But that's just one speculation. Here's Jessica Rabbits with more
thoughts from Kundennik. He also speculated that there had been
(34:57):
a great month soon in flood in July of twenty thirteen,
and that maybe he had died in that. But I
know there had been speculation that maybe he'd been eaten
by a wild animal because he had wandered into the
Himalayas on his own on a trek. So it's hard
to know, you know, there are so many options of
(35:18):
what could have happened to him up there, and other
people there told me that if Jonathan Spalen was wandering
up there, you know, a white guy wandering in the
Himalayas would have been noticed by others and in the searching,
you know, no one had said that they'd seen him,
So could he have also drowned? Could he have been
(35:41):
eaten by a wild animal. Those were some of the
ideas that were being thrown out there. Like I've said before,
and out of respect for Linda's wishes, with no evidence
of a body, all possibilities are open. So a slew
of speculations still abound, and Jonathan's disappearance remains an unsolved mystery.
(36:07):
I hope one day Linda Spalen can get answers around
her son's disappearance. She deserves that, but I respect her
knowing her boundaries, and in solidarity with her wishes, I
ask all of you to please keep all the options
surrounding Jonathan's disappearance open, like Linda has. To narrow the
(36:27):
focus at this point with no real evidence would do
Jonathan a disservice. I don't know if Jonathan would have
called himself a seeker, but I saw a lot of
myself in his story. A curiosity and hunger for an
understanding of humanity, a willingness to seek stories and connections
outside of his comfort zone, a compulsion to live fully.
(36:50):
I'm grateful to have met Linda and gotten to know
her because her son's story has helped me reflect on
my own. Jonathan's story was highly publicized not only because
of who he was or because his disappearance was shrouded
in history, but because of where he disappeared. Yes, in India,
(37:10):
but more specifically Rishikesh, India, the holy city some consider
a spiritual vortex, while others argue that is the Bermuda
Triangle of missing people? Is that area? It is not that,
not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I promise we will uncover
the allure of the spiritual mecca that allegedly swallows body's
(37:32):
whole and the next episode of Astray. Today's episode of Astray,
Jonathan Spalen was produced, written and narrated by Me, Caroline
Slaughter and Quita anand is my co producer and Gappie
wants as our supervising producer. Special thanks to Jessica Rabbits.
(37:52):
Astray was sound produced by Tunewelders, with score and sound
designed by Jason Shannon and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive
producers are Brian Lavin, Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley. Thanks
for listening. School of Humans
School of humans. The holy city of Rishikesh, India buzzes
with those seeking spiritual sustenance. Elabrad ashrums full of foreign
revelers echo with the holy prayers and songs of sat Soong,
(00:28):
led by a Guru or Sadu draped in saffron robes
and guiding their devotees with a contemplative voice of authority.
Incense infuses the air during Puja, a religious ceremony performed
on the gats of the River Ganges. A line of
men adorned an intricately designed robe with s gaze out
(00:49):
at the holy water, rhythmically chanting while they present their
offerings in a circular motion to the Hindu deities they worship.
And the sprawl of yoga studios that have burgeoned in
succession after Rishikesh was recognized as the birthplace of yoga,
thanks him part to the father of transcendental meditation, the Maharishi,
(01:11):
whose foresight and wisdom lured the Beatles to Rashakesh, where
holiness hangs heavy in the air and the simplicity the
Beatles were forced to adopt that the Maharishi's ashrum led
to a creative clarity that birthed the White album. It's
February third, twenty twelve. Twenty eight year old Jonathan Spalen
(01:35):
walks over the narrow, heavily trafficked bridge. He's got pale
skin from his Irish lineage, dark hair of that hangs
around his shoulders, and a beard evidence of the over
two months he's been traveling through India. But unlike the
other Western seekers he passes who are carrying yoga mats
or in a daze from deep meditation, Jonathan doesn't romanticize
(01:58):
the spiritual offerings of Rishikesh. On his last trip to India,
he interviewed Pralad Johnny, a wiry monk with wide blue
eyes and a vacant gaze. If prala Johnny looks a
little out of it, it's because he and his followers
claim that he lived without food or water for eighty years.
He was called a breathrean monk because he survived on air.
(02:24):
Jonathan met with Johnny to write an article about him
while the monk was still alive, and though some people
assumed that he was a follower, Jonathan was not influenced
by Johnny. As a journalist, it was just another job.
Jonathan has worked in journalism and Cairo, Abu Dhabi and
Hong Kong. In a two thousand and ten article he
(02:46):
wrote for The National about Nanog, a Kashmiri village, his
curious and empathic prose easily drop readers into the day
to day of the Kashmiris, not only giving us a
taste of their lives, but an awareness of the peaceful,
simplicity of their culture, which Jonathan states in his article,
I knew I was idealizing romanticizing life in Nananog, but
(03:10):
the real benefits of living there were too great and
too many to ignore. As Westerners consumed with our phones, tablets,
the overall noise of our culture and the expectations, it's
easy to idealize an escape, which is something many parts
of India can offer. On this trip, Jonathan's third to India,
(03:34):
he's at a crossroads in his life and as contemplating
whether to continue journalism or go into documentary film. This
question hangs in the air as he prepares for a
solo track he's going to make into the dense wooded
terrain of the Himalayas outside Rishikesh. His visa is about
to run out, so instead of going to Delhi as
originally planned, this will be his last hurrah in India.
(03:57):
He calls his mom, Linda's balin back in Dublin to
tell her about his track. They're close and have been
keeping up on his travels through India a text and
sporadic calls here and there. When Linda hears of his
planned a trek through the Himalayas solo, she asks that
he consider going with a guide. Jonathan shrugs off from
eternal instinct with a simple answer, I want to do
(04:18):
it on my own, kind of a spiritual thing. If
you google India syndrome, Jonathan's Wikipedia page is listed under
the definition, and part of that is because of this
throwaway comment he made to his mom before a solo
trek he would never return from. As we've discussed, India
(04:39):
syndrome is defined as a psychosis that hits Westerners in
India seeking some sort of spiritual enlightenment, and through expert interviews,
we've deciphered that India syndrome is a theory, not a
medical diagnosis. But it's also a speculation that's plagued Jonathan's
disappearance since he was reported missing on February twenty seventh,
(05:00):
twenty twelve, I wanted to interview Jonathan's mom, Linda on
her thoughts about her son's widely publicized comment about his
solo track being a spiritual thing. Was it blown out
of context or was her son actually seeking something and
the solitude of the Himalayas. Linda and I connected and
(05:22):
spoke several times the past few months, and I've heard
her thoughts on many things, but I never got an
official interview, and therefore will not be sharing our communication
and this episode. And this is why, Hey, hello, you
sleep deprived as hell. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know.
I mean, I mean, I know where this anxiety is
(05:44):
coming from. But this is Gabby as Stray, supervising producer.
I'm in my voice over booth. She's in her room.
We live literally two blocks away from each other, and
this is what we do during the pandemic. We meet
on zoom in separate homes in the same neighborhood and
interview people. But today we're having a different conversation. Hi,
(06:05):
here's Akita, our third in the Estray producing trio. I
don't know if I've told you this, but I did.
I loved you a voice moment, but Linda dropped out again.
Jonathan Spalin's story jump started this podcast, a podcast focused
on India, a country halfway around the world, which made
(06:26):
this past year during COVID pretty tricky, especially while navigating
our original plan to investigate Jonathan's disappearance on that solo
track through the Himalayas. Yeah, I heard that, and you
were thinking of your integrity, doubting it. After the investigation
blew up because of pandemic related reasons, Linda backed out,
(06:47):
which was tough because she and I had formed a
relationship and I had come to value her opinion along
with genuinely wanting to help her answer questions surrounding her
son's disappearance. Ultimately, I knew how important Linda's voice would
be in telling Jonathan's stories, so I re engaged her
in the process and had at least two episodes devoted
to Jonathan because his story is one that really impacted me.
(07:10):
But she backed out again literally two days ago, which
just put us in a scramble. We've been working so
hard to make her feel comfortable with this process, even
sharing the outline with her, and I just feel like
she's disappointed in the process. But also, and I think
Gabby you might have said this. I think she's also grieving.
This is the month where Jonathan went missing. And but
(07:33):
I just feel like we've built this relationship and now
it's just blown up, and like I've disappointed her, and
then it makes me feel like I'm a bad person,
Like am I exploiting her son? You know? Like I
don't know. I just feel really I feel really torn
about it. Obviously I was emotional after she backed out.
(07:53):
I questioned myself my motives for doing this podcast, the
intimate human stories I'm sharing of these men who have disappeared.
When you investigate stories like this, you get pulled in
and cases form relationships with the families. And that's tough
because our job is to expose information, and sometimes there's
conflict in that clarity, because people don't want that information
(08:16):
to lead to further speculations when they don't even have
clear answers themselves. Throughout this process, I felt like I've
been skating this line between entertainment, which you all tune
in for, an ethics, which should be at the core
of all journalism, especially in true crime investigations. But when
Linda dropped out, I questioned all of it, and even
(08:40):
writing his episodes really hard. I mean, you're trying to
answer to your questions and unfortunately you have to do
that by using examples, and Jonathan is an example of it.
So you're not doing anything that's unethical because you are
putting in the work to answer questions and like make
a contribution to our conversations around spirituality. So that's Gabby
(09:01):
talking me off a ledge, but it's also a peak
behind the curtains blow up. In true crime, you're dealing
with loss, be it someone's disappearance or death, and as
podcast facilitators, we have to navigate the heavy emotions and
grief that surround that, which can either fuel an investigation
or put an end to it. This stopped being only
(09:23):
about Jonathan a long time ago, but now it's not
even like he's the main person around who the entire
story revolves. There are many more people now, there are
many more families and keep his right. Originally this was
supposed to be a single true crime investigation about Jonathan's
spawn's disappearance, but after it ended the first time, the
(09:45):
investigation morphed into something bigger as we found more stories
and felt compelled to examine deeper questions. I wanted to
get to the why rather than just unravel the how.
Though the how in Jonathan's case is still extremely ambiguous,
which for this episode, Linda wants to keep that way,
(10:05):
and honestly, we don't know what happened to Jonathan, you know,
and she's never taken spirituality or the sort of spiritual
question off the table. She's always been like, well, I
want to keep everything open. So I guess I'm just
trying to be really aware of that, like, as we
sort of come into the era of true crime, how
can we have bridge of the gap between entertainment and ethics.
(10:28):
I'm going through my own existential crisis about how to
roll out this episode. I respect Linda wanting to steer
clear of assumptions and sensationalism, and honestly, because there's nobody
it's not fair to adhere to one speculation. And though
Ryan Chambers parents, especially as brother Aaron, have leaned into
the larium theory, they've never closed the door on any
(10:49):
of the other possibilities surrounding Ryan's disappearance and Jonathan's episode.
Instead of deep diving into a story with Linda, which
we had planned, to do. I'm going to tell his
story with someone Linda respected. Yeah, we had a really
nice conversation, and I know I remember her saying that
she felt like the story had been misrepresented, you know,
(11:11):
other people trying to sensationalize things that they didn't have
answers to right, And so I was honored that she
was willing to talk to me. This is journalist Jessica
Rabbits speaking about a conversation she had with Linda that
informed the twenty fourteen CNN article she wrote about Jonathan's disappearance.
(11:31):
She didn't pump up the drama or settle in any
one speculation, so out of respect for Linda, I think
it's only fair to have Rabbits, a journalist who I've
also come to appreciate, helped tell Jonathan's story. A colleague
heard I was going to India, to rishie Kesh in particular,
(11:53):
and she came up and told me about a former
colleague of hers and her previous job who had gone
missing in rishie Kesh, and that was Jonathan Spalin. In
twenty fourteen, It's traveled to Rashikesh for a poignant article
she wrote about her own spiritual awakening like Jonathan, she
witnessed this spiritual mecca firsthand. But Risha Kesh is not
(12:17):
all love and light. There's something dark lurking there too,
being in Rishikesh. I mean just it's a spiritual Disneyland,
and everyone there is trying to teach and be a
guru and gather a following and maybe rip people off financially.
Like you know, there's so much that you could fall
(12:37):
victim to. This is the more ominous side of Rashakesh
when we see all too often in the States the
consumerism of spirituality, which can lead to false prophets, scams,
and a handful of other frauds used debate trusting seekers.
I remember very, you know, kind of stopping in my
tracks when I saw the Jonathan Spallen poster, and I
(13:00):
think it's because, you know, I had his face on it,
and I'd seen his face, you know, in searching for
stories about him online, but it was very faded when
I saw it. Jonathan had been missing for at least
two years at this point. At the top of Jessica's article,
there is a picture of Jonathan's missing poster. On the
(13:20):
poster are two photos of Jonathan and one his dark
brown hair is down, his charming bearded face smiling, his
eyes connected to him. Ever is taking the photo. He
looks easy going, present, like someone you'd sit down for
fifteen minutes with and lose two hours. And the other photo,
Jonathan's hair is pulled back, he has the sunglasses on
(13:42):
his head, He's not smiling, his eyes are detached. He's
somewhere else. David Hammerback, the academic I interviewed in episode two,
commented on these missing posters, saying they looked like they
belonged on the side of a milk carton. He believes
Jonathan was painted as a victim by the media, with
the perpetrator of the crime being India. Though I'd agree
(14:07):
that Jonathan was not a victim of India at the country,
Who's to say Jonathan wasn't a victim of something or
some one dangerous while he was there. Though there has
been no evidence of Jonathan's body, there was evidence found
nearest belongings, evidence that led some authorities to believe that
Jonathan didn't disappear by accident but by choice. A broad
(14:43):
shouldered Indian police officer walks through dense woods. He speaks
directly to a camera following him on a trail of
lush greenery, brambles, rocks shutting through the earth. There's a
look of concern in his kind eyes as he maps
out the spot near Garuchati Waterfall, a hot spot for
tourists and Rishikesh, especially during the monsoon when the waterfall
(15:06):
flows at seven different levels. This is also the spot
where Jonathan's belongings were found. This is Kundaneggi, the lead
officer on Jonathan Spalin's case. It's been five years since
Jonathan has reported missing on February twenty seventh, two thousand
and twelve, which was two and a half weeks after
(15:28):
Jonathan's last conversation with his mother, Linda, when he told
her he was going on a track through the Himalayas
alone and that it was kind of a spiritual thing.
A March eleventh of twenty twelve, an American couple discovered
Jonathan's belongings in a wooded clearing not far off the
(15:50):
main trail where the officer Kundaneggi is now leading a
BBC camera crew. The belongings consisted of a bag with
Jonathan's passport, phone charger, clothing and some Hong Kong coins
still inside. According to a BBC article written by Roland Hughes,
a colleague of Jonathan's, and Abu Dhabi, there was also
(16:11):
a hospital record and ultrasound scan in the bag, which
showed that Jonathan had been suffering from kidney stones at
some point during his stay in India. Next to his belongings,
a sleeping bag was laid out with a book on
top of it. Nothing had been touched. It looked like
a site that was set up to come back to,
not disappear from. It was also reported that people who
(16:36):
had seen Jonathan and the weeks leading up to his
disappearance had noticed he'd lost weight and appeared frail. They
also said he was walking with a slight limp due
to a recent fall on a trail. So if this
is the case, he wasn't in the best condition to
endure a strenuous solo track. This seems obvious, but what
(16:56):
stumped authorities, leading them to question if Jonathan chose to disappear,
was evidence found a few days after his belongings a
route to the city of Patna. What was found on
a narrow trail or bawled up identification cards and papers,
including Jonathan's health card and Hong Kong travel pass. According
(17:18):
to Hughes's BBC article, these discarded identification items pointed to
one conclusion. Jonathan was doing what some foreign seekers do
in rashaksh deliberately shedding his possessions and pass life to
renounce who he was so he could follow a new,
enlightened path. And according to Hughes, the photocopies of articles
(17:41):
on spiritual matters found in Jonathan's bag indicate that this
was something he was considering. Directly after Jonathan's disappearance, a
local newspaper in India said the case was new proof
of the phenomenon of individuals, mostly male, disappearing at the
religious hotspots of India and around Knoxman Julia Suspension Bridge.
(18:05):
The article quoted a senior police officer who ascribed the
trend to renunciation fueled by spiritual awakening. So I think
that originally I was reached out to just in terms
of did you know him? Do you have any idea
what might have happened to him? This is Sudvi Bagwati
(18:29):
Saraswati or said Viji for short. She's a spiritual leader
living in India who fueled by a profound spiritual awakening
did renounce her life in California in nineteen ninety six.
For one she felt called to in Rishikesh, India, where
Jonathan disappeared, Saidviji has the presence of someone touched by
(18:52):
a higher power. When she appeared on the zoom with
the pristine sounds of nature surrounding her, I could suddenly
breathe deeper. So I think they then probably wanted to
keep talking to just get some idea of some clarity here.
I was another foreign person who had made a decision
(19:13):
to renounce, and so they may have thought that I
could give some advice in that way. Sadvigi is Hindu,
and through renouncing, she exchanged worldly assets for spiritual ones.
But was this Jonathan's intention? That's what authorities in Jonathan's
family wanted to find out, which is why they reached
(19:34):
out to Sadvigi after his disappearance, to get some sense
of understanding around someone choosing to renounce their past life
in the West for one in India, which, as we've discussed,
some of the evidence near Jonathan's belongings points to a
little bit later, they ended up finding papers and passport
(19:55):
kind of torn up and thrown along pathways somewhere, and
when after a lot of searching, they didn't find his
body somewhere. Usually, if someone drowns in Gana, either accidentally
or on purpose, eventually a body will wash up downstream,
not after that long. Genga is also known as the
(20:18):
Ganges or Mother Gaya. It's the holy river that runs
through rashakesh As. They were not having any luck with
any clues suggesting that he would have drowned in the river,
and they were getting more clues that either he or
someone had thrown his identity papers around. They started thinking
(20:40):
that maybe he had wandered off, just wandered off into
the Himlaas. Again, this sounds like a Chris McCandless tale,
an Eastern into the wild, with someone retreating into the
solitude of nature. But there is a romanticism around this
idea of renouncing one's life. It's a clean slate, exchanging
(21:01):
the noise and societal expectations of the West for the
pea and purity of the East, which is something Jonathan
apparently idealized when he wrote his article about life in
the Kashmiri village nerinag But what a longing for peaceful
simplicity make someone renounce their life, leaving their beloved family, friends,
(21:22):
pets behind, choosing to vanish. So no one renounces their life.
What you renounce is a way that you were formerly
identified in your own mind, a way that you thought
of yourself certain roles or relationships or ways of living.
(21:48):
We renounce sensual pleasures, so we take vows of celibacy.
We renounce ownership, so we take vows of simplicity. We
dedicate our lives to God. We renounce the idea of
a family being just you know, three or four or
(22:10):
five members. When we speak about renunciation of the family,
what it means is that we recognize that the whole
world is our family vasude. This is a Sanskrit phrase
in India meaning the entire earth is our family or
one family. So renunciation is not this romanticized idea of
(22:35):
leaving your past life behind. Choose a simpler one said,
VG renounced to be in service of a higher calling
and the world. So if Jonathan renounced, he would be
of the world, not someone who dropped out of it. Also,
there's no doubt that Jonathan was deeply connected to his
mother Linda. Their bond was evident not only from the
(22:58):
way Linda speaks about her son, but because of his
consistent communication with her when he traveled, and this third
trip to India was no exception. There are times during
his travels where he would drop out for a week
or so due to bad cell phone service or to
conserve his phone's battery, which is something he warned Linda
about on their call before he took off on his
solo track. But dropping out of his life entirely seemed
(23:22):
out of character for Jonathan. I wasn't able to speak
with Jonathan's father, David Greene, but I do know when
he was reported missing, David flew to India to assist
with the search effort, and according to an Irish Times
article written in April twenty twelve, a month after Jonathan disappeared,
David was quoted saying, there is some evidence to suggest
(23:46):
Jonathan was interested in a spiritual pathway. My trip to
India shed a light on him. For me, I have
at times thought I was looking at somebody completely different
to the son that I knew, to suddenly discover that
there may be a whole spiritual aspect to his life,
though he hadn't really touched on is astonishing. Linda Spalen
(24:07):
and David Greene have not spoken to Jonathan in nine years,
which I can imagine for parents who deeply loved their
son and fervently searched for him, would be complete anguish.
According to Sadvigi, the fact that Jonathan has not reached
out to his parents says even further evidence that he
did not renounce in the spiritual sense. My Guru made
(24:30):
it very clear to me. He said, Ay, I had
to take their blessings before I took some nas, but
b I also stay in touch with them. Sadvigi is
speaking about the communication she had with her family before
she renounced and her ongoing relationship with them. When we
speak about renouncing the family, it has to do with
(24:55):
renouncing those relationships and attachments that thwart us on our
spiritual path, those that hold us hostage in a specific identity,
in a specific attachment, in a specific role, in favor
of the spiritual freedom of living as soul spirit consciousness.
(25:21):
That's where the renouncing of family in the vows of
segnas come in. But it's not about bringing pain and
suffering to those who have given you birth. That wouldn't
be a spiritual thing. Mostly, it's important to realize that
renounciation is not running away, it's embracing something very very
(25:47):
beautiful and very real, very true. It's not a moving
away from it's a moving toward. So if Jonathan didn't renounce,
like some authorities and media speculated, then what happened to
his body? Garachati is one of the most popular tourist
(26:09):
spots in rashaksh so it's unusual that while Jonathan's belongings
were found, he was not. Kundanegi, the lead officer on
Jonathan's case, ends the BBC video shot three years after
Jonathan was reported missing, saying I believe that he is
(26:33):
alive and I'm still hopeful that we will find him.
I mean, who knows. In two thousand and one, seventeen
years after his disappearance, when his parents and the Austrian
embassy in India had lost all hope of his being alive,
an Austrian national reappeared, saying he went missing by choice
(26:54):
in India so he could live in complete peace. This
case was reported and a twenty eighteen article for the
Tribune in India. There was also someone they talked to
who said that he was reading Shanta Dam the book,
and so they thought, well, maybe that inspired him to
kind of disappear off the grid. That book found on
(27:16):
top of Jonathan's sleeping bag. It's been reported that it
was Shantam. If reading Catcher in the Rye is a
write of passage for angsty teens, that's Shantam for foreigners
in India looking to reinvent themselves or fall off the grid.
Influenced by the life of the author Gregory David Roberts,
the two thousand and three book Shantam follows a convict
(27:38):
to escapes an Australian prison and flees to the chaos
of India, where he chooses to vanish into the slums
of Bombay. He becomes absorbed by India, living through many
significant experiences that eventually lead him to build an honest life.
The title Shantaram has spiritual significance. It means man of
(27:59):
God's Peace, which is a name given to the protagonist
Len by an Indian woman and a native him and village.
Though Jonathan was spotted with Chantaram before he went missing,
a book that reveres this idea of falling off the grid,
(28:22):
it's yet another speculation, not a fact, which I can
only imagine would be hard for Linda when I talked
to her. I think she still needed to hold onto hope.
I don't know where she's at now. This is Jessica
Rabbits again speaking about her conversation with Linda. I remember
distinctly her talking about how she loved the idea of,
(28:45):
you know, if she could believe that he was sitting
in a cave in the Himalayas meditating like that was
a beautiful way to think about where he might be.
And I, you know, I'm not I'd never had children
of my own. I cannot understand the pain that she
had been grappling with and and now yet accepting that
(29:06):
he might be gone forever was where she needed to be.
And I respected that. I mean, I understood that, you know,
the not knowing at least allowed her to hold onto
a shred of hope. And who's to say that hope
is unjustified at this point? When examining what happened to
Jonathan Spalen, all possibilities are open, which means every speculation, theory,
(29:31):
or synchronicity needs to be considered, including something all three
of the missing men, Ryan, Justin, and Jonathan had in common.
The first three stories we've covered in this podcast have
some things in common. Yes, Jonathan, Justin, and Ryan were
all Westerners who disappeared in India, but there are also
(29:53):
three men. And you rarely hear stories about men and
true crime. These mysteries or murderers usually revolve around women.
I brought in true crime expert psychologist Amanda Vickery to
talk about this, not only because it's interesting, but she
might be able to pinpoint some other commonalities. So if
(30:14):
you look at crime statistics, men are much more likely
to be the victim of a violent crime. People kind
of get this skewed idea of a women are out
there getting killed all the time, and also, of course
a skewed idea of how likely it is to happen
which I fall victim to all the time. I convince
I'm going to be killed by a serial killer on
a daily basis, when rationally I know the statistics of
(30:36):
that happening are very very slim. But yes, men are
for sure more likely to be the victim of a
violent crime, but not the types of crimes that are
covered or focused on and the media as much, not
always as sensational, which is what's interesting because the cases
you're looking into of men missing in India is very unusual.
(30:57):
We don't often get as much coverage of men going missing,
as you said, compared to women, it's less likely to
happen in a sort of sensational manner. All of the
cases we've shared so far on this podcast feature men,
and their stories are sensational. But that's not just because
of the media's influence. It's because of the mystery surrounding
(31:20):
coal cases with nobody, little evidence, and zero answers. My
next question to Amanda was about risk taking, a trait
that was obvious in justin Alexander Schetler's makeup and possibly
in Jonathan's. If you give someone a personality survey, men
are much more likely to be risk takers and to
be sensation seekers and things like that. And that's something
(31:43):
I'm actually investigating in a study I have going on
right now. I'm still collecting data on it. I'm curious
to see if men and women who are more into
sensation seeking and risk taking things like that, are they
more interested in true crime podcasts. And that's something I
don't know the answer too yet. It's ongoing. I guess
I ultimately throw that question back on you, the listener.
(32:03):
I'm admittedly not risk over. I mean, I'm doing this podcast,
but I also listened to true crime in the same
way many women do, not just to unravel the how,
but to understand the why. My research showed that women
people in general, and women especially are into crime oftentimes
because it's almost like a survival factor. They're learning what
(32:26):
happens so that they can prevent it from happening to them.
And I sometimes wondered the unsolved cases that should make
it even more relevant because this person or whatever's happening
could still be out there, which is one of the
reasons I wanted to investigate Jonathan's disappearance in this podcast.
What if Jonathan's not alive and whatever or whomever got
(32:46):
to him is still out there. Yeah, he definitely had speculations.
Jessica Rabbit's track down Kundanegi, the lead officer on Jonathan's investigation,
for an interview in twenty fourteen, two years after Jonathan's disappearance.
Nagi was also on Ryan Chambers case, but like I said,
(33:07):
the Chambers didn't get a lot of help from the
Indian authorities and weren't as supported by Naggie. As Linda Us,
Linda will forever be grateful for Naggie's persistence, whatever the outcome.
She considers Naggie a man of great integrity and determination
in a system which is gravely lacking in resources from
a Western perspective. But Naggie, like any police officer immersed
(33:30):
in a cold case, does have speculations about what happened
to Jonathan. Oh. He wondered if maybe Jonathan Spalen had
wandered off with a sadu or a holy man who
practiced black magic, for example. I'm going to check in
with Ikita about this because it sounds sort of like
(33:50):
the Justin Alexander Schetler scenario, and I want to get
her thoughts on this whole black magic thing. First of all,
there is no scientific basis for anything called black magic,
but among people who do believe in it, the general
bust up enough. A black magic practitioner would be someone
who knows a certain magical or supernatural rituals that can
(34:13):
be used to harm someone else. That is the typical perception.
You know, Justin went with the sado on this spiritual track.
We don't know if this guy practiced quote unquote black magic.
But I guess my question is why would a Westerner
seek out someone who practices black magic. I guess it
(34:34):
would be the lure of mystery and also a journalist
mindset of finding out what really lies beneath something that
has not been explored enough, or something that claims to me, say, supernatural.
But that's just one speculation. Here's Jessica Rabbits with more
thoughts from Kundennik. He also speculated that there had been
(34:57):
a great month soon in flood in July of twenty thirteen,
and that maybe he had died in that. But I
know there had been speculation that maybe he'd been eaten
by a wild animal because he had wandered into the
Himalayas on his own on a trek. So it's hard
to know, you know, there are so many options of
(35:18):
what could have happened to him up there, and other
people there told me that if Jonathan Spalen was wandering
up there, you know, a white guy wandering in the
Himalayas would have been noticed by others and in the searching,
you know, no one had said that they'd seen him,
So could he have also drowned? Could he have been
(35:41):
eaten by a wild animal. Those were some of the
ideas that were being thrown out there. Like I've said before,
and out of respect for Linda's wishes, with no evidence
of a body, all possibilities are open. So a slew
of speculations still abound, and Jonathan's disappearance remains an unsolved mystery.
(36:07):
I hope one day Linda Spalen can get answers around
her son's disappearance. She deserves that, but I respect her
knowing her boundaries, and in solidarity with her wishes, I
ask all of you to please keep all the options
surrounding Jonathan's disappearance open, like Linda has. To narrow the
(36:27):
focus at this point with no real evidence would do
Jonathan a disservice. I don't know if Jonathan would have
called himself a seeker, but I saw a lot of
myself in his story. A curiosity and hunger for an
understanding of humanity, a willingness to seek stories and connections
outside of his comfort zone, a compulsion to live fully.
(36:50):
I'm grateful to have met Linda and gotten to know
her because her son's story has helped me reflect on
my own. Jonathan's story was highly publicized not only because
of who he was or because his disappearance was shrouded
in history, but because of where he disappeared. Yes, in India,
(37:10):
but more specifically Rishikesh, India, the holy city some consider
a spiritual vortex, while others argue that is the Bermuda
Triangle of missing people? Is that area? It is not that,
not the spiritual Bermuda Triangle. I promise we will uncover
the allure of the spiritual mecca that allegedly swallows body's
(37:32):
whole and the next episode of Astray. Today's episode of Astray,
Jonathan Spalen was produced, written and narrated by Me, Caroline
Slaughter and Quita anand is my co producer and Gappie
wants as our supervising producer. Special thanks to Jessica Rabbits.
(37:52):
Astray was sound produced by Tunewelders, with score and sound
designed by Jason Shannon and mixed by Harper Harris. Executive
producers are Brian Lavin, Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley. Thanks
for listening. School of Humans
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com