April 7, 2021 • 36 mins
In November 2018, Russell flew to Rishikesh seeking the “next level of spirituality,” but it’s a quest he would never return from.
Russell in Rishikesh Show Notes:
Unidentified Dead Bodies in India Database ~ The database where Russell’s body was found.
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
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of humans. There are many unsolved mysteries circling the
Holy City of Rishakesh, Foreigners who vanish, unforeseen spiritual awakenings,
the healing powers of the Ganges, a river where both
salvation and death flow, and the unexplainable energy that draws
(00:31):
seekers who believe the holy city is a fast track
to enlightenment. One of those seekers was Russell, a Sri
Lankan living in Melbourne who had his sights set on
visiting Rishikesh. It's November twenty eighteen. Russell, a Sri Lankan
(00:53):
living in Melbourne, is at the airport in Melbourne waiting
for his flight to board. Though he's eventually going to
meet up with his family in Sri Lanka for his
cousin's wedding, he's traveling light materials. Things aren't important to
Russell these days. He lives minimally and stopped buying stuff
for the sake of buying it for a while now.
But as he's gotten more dedicated to his spiritual journey,
(01:16):
his family has noticed that he's detaching from the things
that used to meet a lot to him, like cricket.
One day, he gave his bats away and stopped playing
a sport he used to love. Not long ago, he
had a breakdown after he was scammed by a girlfriend.
It left him financially ruined and tested his faith in humanity.
(01:37):
He couldn't believe that someone he had loved, dated and
lived with for a handful of years could be so deceitful.
After hitting this breaking point, Russell's family noticed his deeper
commitment to spiritual growth. But Russell was born a seeker,
driven by curiosity, an interested in human connection. He spent
(01:58):
nine months in Peru with Shaman's, studied multiple religions, and
experimented with ayahuasca, and though he was raised Catholic, he's
drawn Hinduism, which is why his sister Rosita is not
surprised he's decided to take a quick detour to India
before meeting up with his family at the wedding. Unlike Rosita,
(02:19):
Russell isn't married and doesn't have kids, so he's thrown
himself into self discovery and his quest for the next
level of spirituality. This is what drew Russell to Rishikesh,
a seeker with one intention for traveling there, but that
is what might have killed him. An announcement echoes through
(02:42):
the airport. The flight to Derroduna, India is boarding. When
Russell lands in Derradun, he'll hop either a bus or
taxi that will take him to his final destination, Rishikesh.
As Russell steps into the line of passengers, he overhears
someone talking about Vicisht Goufa, a cave carved into a
steep cliff on the banks of the Ganges an hour
(03:05):
from shiksh It's also known as the Jesus Cave, a
name derived from lore that Jesus spent some of his
lost years in India. The lost years refer to an
eighteen year period of Jesus's life from ages twelve to
twenty nine that are not documented in the New Testament.
(03:25):
Various Swamis, male Hindu spiritual teachers in India claim that
during these lost years, Jesus sought solitude and the cavern
of Vishisht Gufa, and in the last century, two swamis
with no knowledge of Jesus's connection to the cave said
when visiting they had visions of Jesus meditating there. Russell
(03:46):
plans to visit the sacred cave and cleanse himself in
the river Ganges flowing through the center of Rishikesh. Ever
since he's been practicing Hinduism, he's felt called to Mother Ganga.
Like the Hindus, he believes she will wash away bad
karma and evil spirits and provide a clean saying that
will reawaken him. His phone vibrates. It's a WhatsApp message
(04:10):
from his sister, Rosita, checking in on him. He lets
her know he's boarding and he'll text her when he lands.
He shuts off his phone in preparation for the thirteen
hour flight, hands his ticket to the flight attendant, who
scans it, then enters the dimly lit jet bridge, boarding
a plane that will take him to a city he'll
never return from. Unlike Jonathan and Ryan's stories, which were
(04:36):
publicized by the media, this is the first time Russell's
story has ever been told. I try to go through
the emails, and it was just too hard, just emotionally.
So I'll just tell you the story. That's how how
I recall it, because I have blocked some of it out.
This is Rosita, Russell's older sister. She's asked that I
(04:57):
not use their surnames to keep anonymity. This is a
deeply personal story to Rosita, but She also has controversial
views about Rishi Cash and what happened to her brother there,
so there is a security in remaining unknown. Rosita describes
what Russell was seeking at that time. He was more
interested in seeking for the next level of spirituality, basically
(05:20):
not being born into a human form again, learning all
the lessons you have to in these human form so
you can move on to the next realm, move on
to the next level. That's what I think Russell was doing.
Rosita had a deep bond with her younger brother. I
recognize this bond because I have it with my siblings.
She's protective, devoted, and today, nearly two years after the
(05:44):
loss of her brother, she's still heartbroken. As soon as
he landed, he sent a message saying, hey, I arrived
in Rishikesh. I'll see you guys in four days. This
is the text Rosie I've been waiting for from her brother.
But when she didn't hear from Russell on November twenty ninth,
the night he was supposed to land and tree lunk,
(06:06):
she started to worry, and when there was still no
word on the morning of November thirty if, she called
the front desk of his hotel to see if he
had checked in, and I said, can you please put
me for the root Russell was staying. They put me
on hold and they come back and said he never
checked in. Straight away I knew something was wrong. Her
(06:26):
husband and cousins told her she was being paranoid. He
must have dismissed his flight. But when it was confirmed
by the airline that Russell never boarded his flight to
Sri Lanka, Rosita's older brother Trevor, who didn't attend the
wedding and was still in Australia, went to the local
police station to file a missing person's report and was
directed to the Australian Embassy in India, but the embassy
(06:48):
wasn't exactly helpful. They kept dismissing Trevor, saying a lot
of people decide to stay in India. They just decided
to hang around and they decide not to contact family.
And we're like, you don't understand. We don't do that.
No matter where we go, we know exactly you know
where our family may bizarre, but Rosita didn't know where
Russell was, so paperwork was filed with the Australian Embassy
(07:11):
in India and on December first, Russell was declared a
missing person. It was official, which sent Rosita and her
family down a rabbit hole of what fs Did he
get beaten up? Has he been robbed? Is he lying
in the hosspital? You know, all these horrible thoughts go through,
but there's always hope that he's alive. And there was
(07:32):
a huge thought that went through our mind. Has he
decided to go into an Ushran? And only after he
went missing we started doing some research on Rishikesh and
then we just found out, oh gosh, we did not
know about Rishikesh, the background, how there's so many people
gone missing and have people decide just to let go
(07:52):
of everything and you know, go into an USh Ran
for thirty days or sixty days and just live this lifestyle.
So that was a hope. This was twenty eighteen, so
if Rosita googled Rishikesh, she'd obviously seen headlines for the
disappearances of Ryan Chambers in two thousand and five and
(08:14):
Jonathan Spallen in two thousand and twelve. Her hope that
Russell hadn't met the same feat but would be found
meditating in an ash room somewhere in Rishikesh was the
preferable outcome, but what happened on December fifteenth, fourteen days
after Russell was declared missing, made for a bleaker reality.
Trevor got an email from the embassy's It stated that
(08:37):
his suitcase and his belongings were found and they named
the place and it was sort of for me, googled it.
It was sort of under this bridge, and you know,
horrible thoughts come in, like why under a bitch? You know,
why he's suitcase and why his belonging said where is he?
And that particular night, Trevor called me and said, Rasia,
it's fifty to fifty fifty percent he's alive, fifty percent
(09:00):
he's gone. And I sort of like refused to believe it.
I'm like, don't say that. But things got weirder. The
embassy was able to track the simcard that Russell purchased
for his phone when he landed in India. They emailed
the simcard information to Russell's family and there was only
one thing left to do. Trevor found a friend who
spoke Hendie and they dialed Indian person answered the phone
(09:24):
and said, I knew someone was going to call. I
found his wallet and the phone, but I actually handed
the wallet into the Australian Embassy in India, but I
kept the phone because I knew someone would call for
him a clue, someone who might lead them to Russell.
But when they contacted the embassy, no wallet had been
(09:45):
turned in, which means there was no additional information about
this unidentified source they had just spoken to. So they
tried russell sim number again. The second phone call was
made to that same number and the person picked up
the phone again, and when the question was asked, where
exactly did you find it? The person got very nervous
(10:06):
and start hesitating to talk and was not comfortable at
all too even as a way he found it, and
then he hung up the phone and several other attempts
were made to contact him, but that phone was switched off.
Rosita said something was off. Either this guy was spooked
(10:26):
and thought he might get into some sort of trouble
speaking to them, or he had something to do with
her brother's disappearance. Either way, it was another dead end
until Rosita and her husband got the call they've been
waiting for. Trevor called my husband and said, I'm going
to send you a link. I want you to have
a look at it, I think I found Russell. Trevor
(10:50):
had found Russell, but not in the way anyone, especially
his family, could ever have imagined. Like Crying Chambers and
Jonathan's Ballen Russell was another missing Westerner in Rashia Cash
and Tell. Rosita's husband, Sean, clicked on that link her
(11:11):
brother Trevor sent Sean had a look at the link,
and sure enough, it was a picture of Russell's dead
body on that website. The website is a database that's
run by the Indian Police called Unidentified Dead Bodies. It
consists of close to ninety thousand bodies. It's disturbing to
look through. But for Rosita, the database gave her access
(11:35):
to her brother. So even though her husband and older
brother persuaded her not to, she knew. In order to
believe Russell was really gone, she had to identify her
brother's dead body. He was just sort of lying on
the ground. He's either washed up or pulled out. You
could see he's bloated, you know. He was just wearing
(11:57):
a white T shirt which looked turned into like a
muddy color obviously from the dirty border. And it was
in Depans, So for him to be in his underpans,
that he was wearing a sarong, which he does when
he goes to ritual you know, and like spiritual retreats
or if he goes to Sri Lanka. And I could
(12:18):
definitely picture him in India just wearing underpans and a
sarong and a T shirt and his thongs or whatever,
just walking around. You know, I don't know what you
call it, but on his wrist, you know, in Hinduism
or Buddhism, like they wear these cotton threads. It's spiritual.
So he had some of that, but that was all.
(12:39):
In Southeast Asia, locals and many visiting Westerners like Russell,
wears ranks, which is a fabric draped around the body
and tugged at the waist or under the arms. The
cotton thread or threads on his wrist could have been
a katuk, usually read it's a ritual protection thread tied
by a priest or guru on the wrist of a devotee.
(13:00):
Russell's body was dragged from the Ganges on December third,
twenty eighteen, five days after he was supposed to fly
to Sri Lanka. The Unidentified dead Body's database did not
mention a cause of death. But before the family could
even think of investigating, there was something they had to
do first. My mom and I would you said, oh
(13:21):
my god, we need to bring him home. They found
him on the third of December. Now we're on the nineteenth.
Russell's body had most likely been in the Ganges for
those five days he was missing, which is why he
was bloated when he was pulled from the river, and
for the past seventeen days his body had been sitting
in a morgue in India, but his family wanted him
(13:41):
home so they could say their goodbyes properly with a
Catholic funeral. When Trevor called the police station listed on
Russell's profile to claim his body, they ran for another shock.
Police told him that within three days of the body
being found, that they cremated Russell and threw the ashes
into the Gangi River. And we were absolutely devastated, you know,
(14:05):
because it's where you used to burying our death. That's
the way we say a goodbye. Now this is just
heartbreaking to imagine. They had found Russell's body and all
they wanted to do was bring him home and mourn
him in the way they were accustomed to. With an
open casket and burial, but he was cremated and in
(14:26):
a way taken from them again. Additionally, because Russell's body
had been cremated, there was no evidence to determine his
cause of death until they received the coroner's report. So
on the coroner's report, number one cause of death for
Russell is death by drowning. Number two cause of death
(14:48):
is blunt trauma to the head. Hearing about this blunt
force trauma made Rosita think back to the first time
she had seen Russell's picture on the database. Now, when
I saw the picture of Russell, I could see this
big bump on his forehead. Could be a possibility that
someone hit him on the ahead and then he fell
into the river or was pushed into the river. There
(15:09):
are so many scenarios. But one scenario she wasn't expecting
was how invested the Indian police suddenly were now that
Russell's body had been identified on the database as an
Australian citizen. She was also surprised by the new information
they shared. Indian police sent the email saying that his
suitcase and his passport was found in the hotel. Now
(15:33):
you don't have to be a genius to work out
that hold on the stories that you guys are sending us,
it is not matching up. First, you said, when Russell
was still missing, you said the suitcase and his belongings
were found under a bridge. Well no, now that Russell
has been found on the internet, now you're saying his
suitcase and his passport and belonging in the hotel. And
(15:54):
also there was another email stating that Russell was very
aggressive and abusive towards the hotel's staff. So this is
the hotel and Risha Cash where Russell stayed and where
police were now saying they had found his suitcase and belongings,
and according to the police, it's also where Russell was
publicly aggressive to hotel staff, which was captured on hotel
(16:18):
cameras November twenty eighth, two days before he was supposed
to leave Risha Cash. So we requested for the video
because now you know, now they're saying he was aggressive
and abusive, chose the hotel staff and the guests, So
I wanted to see the video to see what's going on.
My thing was that's not Russell. If he was, then
(16:39):
something's not right. The police never sent that footage to
Rosie and her family. So you can imagine receiving this new,
unsubstantiated information from the Indian police led to their suspicions
towards not only the police, but institutions like the Australian
Embassy in India that are supposed to advocate for their
(16:59):
country citizens and protect them. But I've also learned from
this experience that they Astralian Embassy in India have no
power over what happens in India. This is something we
followed up on. We'll get into that in a bed
But first, if Russell's aggression was out of character, and
his outburst at the hotel wasn't something fabricated by the
(17:20):
police or embassy, then what happened. There is a huge
possibility that Russell would have whatever they drink, that the
Sadu's drink. You know, if there was an opportunity and
it was presented to him, he could yet he would
have taken it. This drink Rosida is talking about, that
Sadu's or holy Men drink is infused with bang and
(17:42):
intoxicant made from the leaves of the female cannabis plant.
Bang is used by Hindus for spiritual purposes. They drink
it to honor Shiva, the god of destruction, who is
believed to have used the intoxicant to focus inward and
harness his divine powers for the good of the world.
Many Westerners who travel through India seek this extreme high
(18:05):
that some say brings them closer to this elusive idea
of enlightenment and can result in either a happy haze, paranoia,
or just getting racked like one Western I read about
who after drinking bang was bound to his bad and
toilet viciously vomiting for three days strade. So it's pretty
powerful stuff, which might explain Russell's behavior. Well, that makes sense.
(18:30):
If he'd taken it, maybe then he would have had
some sort of an episode, and maybe that's why he
was aggressive or abusive if that email is correct. Rosita
also has speculations about the Sadus, who, in her opinion,
tempt foreigners with these intoxicants. So, having spoken to Indian
born Australians, you know, one person mentioned that it's common
(18:52):
knowledge that there's a lot of Sadus that are not
doing the right thing. You know, they're just scammers who
encourage the Westerners. You know, they think they're better off
moving on to the next journey of spiritualism, meaning leaving
the body that you know we're in. Apparently they encourage
them to walk into the into the river. One person
(19:14):
mentioned that it's common knowledge around Rishikesh for those people
who live there that the Westerners come there to die.
Like Rosita said, these theories were shared with her by
Indian born Australians, So I don't know how much of
this is true. It's just was told to me. We've
dug into the veracity of these claims before and will again,
(19:38):
but right now I want to focus on the effect
these stories had on Rosita. When considering what happened to Russell,
a seeker who traveled to Rishikesh specifically for a spiritual awakening,
but was then found drowned and the same river he
came to cleanse himself in, you can see how for
Rosita these theories could start to feel more like truth.
(20:02):
There was one theory that haunted her, and it's not
about how Russell died, but what happened to him after
he was found. This was something she felt she needed
to share with another Australian family who would also experienced tragedy.
In Rasha Cash, I don't know for what reason during
that traumatic time that his name just came into my head.
(20:26):
I just thought of him, and I just thought of
Dyan Jock. She's speaking about Ryan Chambers, whose story we
told in episode one and two, and whose disappearance she
read about while researching Risha Cash after Russell went missing.
There the Ryan's family deny his seeking anything spiritual in India,
Rosita recognized her brother's language and Ryan's last journal entry,
(20:48):
if I'm not gone, don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm
just freeing minds. And to do that, I had to
free my own. Ryan went missing in two thousand and five,
and ten years later, there's my brother, who's you know,
and he's full of breath Higgs saying the same words.
So I thought that was quite interesting. Two people of
(21:09):
two different generations, you know, two different backgrounds, talk in
the same language. This and some darts. She'd started to
connect around what happened to her brother in India compelled
her to reach out to Ryan's parents, Jack and Diane.
I wanted to reach out, but it took me a
long time because you know, I was very traumatized, like
(21:29):
the whole thing. So when I finally did reach out.
I wanted to tell them my story, and she did.
That's why I met Rosita. I was introduced to her
by Jack after our interview as someone else who had
lost a loved one and reach the cash. But what
I didn't know is why she initially contacted Jack and Diane.
(21:49):
You know, it was very hard for me to tell them,
and obviously it's not very easy for them to hear it.
But I did tell them. You know, I'm so sorry
to tell you, but Ry Ryan's gone. They would have
done exactly what they would have done to Russell. They
would have cremated his body, got rid of the ash.
Because there's no evidence, Rosita believes that what happened to
Russell most likely happened to Ryan. The only difference is
(22:13):
Russell's photo was taken and posted on the Unidentified Dead
Bodies database, but Rosita thinks that was a mistake. He
looked like a local where Trlanken born. So of course
our skin color is dark and we do look like Indians.
You know, people would mistake us. There was nothing that
(22:33):
anyone would think, oh he's a Westerner or he's a foreigner,
you know, And this is why Rosita believes Russell's body
was posted under the Unidentified Dead Body's database, and other
foreigners who blatantly stand out as Westerners are not featured
on the site. I truly feel this is just my
opinion that there is something going on there. We were
(22:55):
just lucky that we found Russell's picture on the Internet
and they made a mistake in uploading an Australian citizen
onto that website. To my knowledge, haven't looked at it.
I asked my brother because I'm not willing to go
on that website. There is no white people's dead bodies
on that Unidentified Dead Bodies in India website. I think
(23:15):
it's just local Indians that they're upload So when you know,
they find the foreigner's body, they're not going to upload
that onto that Internet. I think they've done exactly what
they've done to Russell. They've promated the body, got rid
of the evidence, so the person is missing. It's better
to have missing people so that the foreigners still come
(23:35):
to retrication and spend their money and you know, do
their journey there, than to have them are dead, dead
foreigners and that's not good for business. This is an
extreme theory, but if you consider the ordeal Rosita and
her family went through with the Indian authorities. Her reaction
makes sense to me. I asked in Kite if she
(23:58):
thought Rosida's reaction was justified and if others experienced this
kind of mismanagement with authorities. Yes, it's uncommon to be
frustrated with administrative processes in India. It's quite common. So
when I hear Rosita talk about how tough it was
for her to get information about her brother from the authorities,
(24:19):
it is not hard for me to imagine. Even the
part about not admitting the truth for fear of bad
press is relatable. Every now and then we see some
journalistic report with solid facts and evidence that gets dismissed
by the government because they say it is some sort
of conspiracy to defame the country. So that obviously creates
(24:40):
mistrust in Indians and foreigners alike about the integrity of
these official procedures. So this helps explain some of law
enforcements mismanagement around Russell's case. But what about Rosia's contentious
theory about what happens to missing foreigners in India. It's
a question we've been investigating head on in this podcast.
(25:02):
So this theory around a cover up is when we
need to examine, which we'll do after the break. I
want to examine Rosida's theory about some sort of cover
up around missing foreigners in India. So I'm bringing am
I producing team Gabby Anquita, who have been researching the
(25:23):
topic and have their own thoughts. So just pulling up
this Unidentified Dead Bodies database that Gabby's done a lot
of research on. So, Gabby, since you're familiar with the site,
could you tell us a little bit about it. So, yeah,
the Unidentified Dead Bodies Database was started in two thousand
and four, and it was started as a collaboration between
(25:44):
police departments across the country, and it was mostly started
as a something or like public interest. So yeah, it's
about twenty nine thousand pages total, and then there's about
ninety entries in the database. And I mean, the one
thing that is kind of unhelpful about it is that
more than half of the entries don't have photographs. I
(26:06):
went through some of the latest entries in the database,
and Gabby's right, there are quite a few without photos,
but nearly every entry lists approximate age, sex, height, weight, complexion,
face shape, what they're wearing, and any other identifiers in
the body, like scars or tattoos. I'm looking at the
latest entry in the database. It's listed just a few
(26:28):
days ago. He's a fifty year old male. They give
him an ID number and the district that he was
found in, which was Delhi. The crime was on a
railway in that district. The image below that profile is
harder to look at. The sex is stated as male,
but his face is mangled so it's hard to tell,
and he's laying down in a pool of his own blood. Yeah,
(26:52):
this is hard to look at. So if we go
to the next page, there's a man laying in some
dirt and fallen leaves. He looks almost malnourished. His collarbones
and wristbones are sticking out, and his beard and eyes
seemed to be half open. Profile says he's around thirty five,
and they identify his religion as Hindu. And Keita looked
at the entry with me. It also says reward amount
(27:14):
of zero, which is a little bit sad when I
think of the reward amount that families of missing people
put when they want their family members back. It's almost
just as if a person is just a serial number
and date and so on, And I mean, I understand
(27:36):
that it's really important, but the process can also really
dehumanize someone. That could be really a shock for any
family member or a loved one to look at this picture.
Looking at bodies like this becomes desensitizing, which is disturbing.
I mean, I understand the purpose of the site, but
(27:57):
skimming through it feels just wrong. But we're not looking
at this database for no reason. So Rosita has a
theory that foreigners dead body, specifically white foreigners are not
listed on this database. And the only reason Russell was
was because he was a schu Lankan descent and so
he had a darker complexion and was mistaken for a local.
(28:17):
So I don't know. I mean, what are your guys
thoughts on this? So, yeah, I've gone through I guess
now at this point, I've gone through about two hundred
pages of the database, and I think, you know, that
assessment could be correct in that all of the entries
that I've seen either they have a very apparent complexion
or their complexion is listed. And I haven't really seen
(28:39):
as many lighter complexioned people. I did see one person
who did have a lighter complexion and they identified this
person with they had some tattoos in English, which I
mean that doesn't necessarily mean they are you know, they
aren't from like a western country, you know, like Australia, US,
England or whatever. And I mean that doesn't necessarily like
(29:01):
I don't really know if there is a correlation between
Rosida's theories and the fact that there aren't more white
people showing up in the database. As Gaby said, a
very small fraction of these entries is listed as having
a light complexion, but it's hard to know for sure
because of the status some of the bodies. And while
just through observation we can't legitimately substantiate Rosida's theory that
(29:24):
white foreigners aren't listed on this database, I think it's
important to remember that the database features dead body entries
from a country with a population of over one billion,
so it makes sense that a majority of these entries
are Indian. And Keita did some research about crimes against
westerners in India and found that in twenty nineteen, only
four hundred and nine crimes against foreigners were reported. That's
(29:47):
a relatively small number. And Keita, what are your thoughts
in Rosida's theory and this idea that there's some sort
of cover up around dead foreigners in India. Yeah, I mean,
I won't want to speculate without any kind of investigation
into this, but because we live in India but have
experienced corruption, and we have experienced things where facts are
(30:11):
hidden or action is not taken on time, so it
feels like one cannot entirely doole out the possibility. And
also we keep hearing about either if people come out
and critique of something that is happening in society or
at the government level, then the fact that it is
(30:32):
dismissed as being anti national. So these things to create
suspicion in you and stop you from completely trusting the
organizations that have been put in place to take care
of these things. Gary, I know you've done more research
around the Australian embassy and this idea of some sort
of embassy cover up. Do you think there's truth in that? Unclear.
(30:56):
I reached out to the Australian Embassy and never heard
back from them, and of course that wouldn't mean that
they would have talked to me and be like, yes,
we're involved in lots of cover ups or anything. But
there have been some other cases that are similar where
there have been, you know, parents of foreigners who had
(31:16):
died who were also frustrated with their embassies and with
the police departments. If you are trying to like identify
a cover up, you do google that. The thing that
comes up first is if there was almost a proven,
substantiated cover up that was going on in Goa. Goa
is hundreds of miles away from Racia, Cash and the
(31:37):
other areas we've covered so far. It's by the coast
in the southwestern part of the country. It's a vacation
destination for foreigners who want to lounge on the beach
by day and hit up the clubs at night. But
since two thousand and five, there have been two hundred
and forty five foreigner deaths the local police determined as natural,
but over the years, parents of some of these tourists
(31:59):
managed to get second autopsies which reclassified the deaths as homicides.
In two thousand and eight, fifteen year old British citizen
Scarlet Keeling died in Goa. Her body was found in
a pool of shallow water, bruised and semi naked. Authorities
said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy
found that she was sexually assaulted and had suffered more
(32:22):
than fifty injuries. There was another case of twenty two
year old Felix Doll and again the police said it
was an accidental death, but the second autopsy, done in
Doll's home country of Finland, revealed that there were fatal
injuries inflicted to his skull from a high impact weapon.
Parents of ten of the foreigners who were killed wrote
a letter to India's Prime Minister Modi in twenty seventeen
(32:45):
to demand an unbiased and independent investigation into their children's deaths.
The letter reads, the quality of the work of the
police and GOA should be investigated. Instead of investigating the
murders and killings, the local police want to cover up
the truth. The investigation is needed to reveal the connections
(33:06):
between the locals, the police and GOA, drug mafia and
politicians and their involvement and the deaths of tourists and
locals and GOA. In one interview, Felix Dahl's mother said
that all the facts provided by the police were imaginary
and followed that up by saying something similar to Rosita.
She suspects these deaths were covered up so they don't
(33:29):
affect tourism in the area. The cause of Russell's death
is still unknown, but I'm grateful that Rosita shared his
story because it's one that could potentially shed light on
what happened to others who have gone missing in Raishikesh.
Russell went to Rashikesh specifically seeking this next level of
(33:50):
spirituality and maybe he found what he was looking for.
As a believer in the Hindu faith, Russell revered the
sacred Ganges were Hindu's embraced death as death defines life,
her waters, offering them hope that one day they will
be liberated from an endless cycle of birth and death
(34:12):
and attain nirvana. He was on a spiritual journey, so
we believe that he did die in the Ganges. So
with the spiritual journey that he's when, it's a very
auspicious way to die. So it's a very good blessing
to die in that rivers. So I think we have
to take comfort in that his beliefs and his journey.
(34:33):
So yeah, I know that when it's my time, I
will see him again. We've dug into many theories in
this podcast, which happens when you investigate cases where people
have gone missing. There are too many unknowns, which leads
to even more speculations. But next week well unfold the
(34:56):
story of Charlie Marinelli, whose experience in India is similar
to the others we've shared, But unlike Ryan, Jonathan or Justin,
Charlie's story is not swarming with theories. It provides answers.
He pushed the edges in other ways in the past
before and never went to this edge. I think he's
(35:16):
in trouble because he was definitely looking at somebody in
that dark room. Somebody was standing over him, watching him.
Astray as a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio.
Today's episode of Astray Russell and Risha Cash was produced, written,
and narrated by Me, Caroline Slaughter and Kita anand is
(35:37):
my co producer and Gavie Watts as our supervising producer.
Special thanks to Rosita for telling Russell's story. Astray was
sound produced by Tune Welders, with score and sound design
by Jason Shannon and mix by Harper Harris. Executive producers
are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, and Elsie Crowley. Thanks for listening.
(36:20):
School of Humans
School of humans. There are many unsolved mysteries circling the
Holy City of Rishakesh, Foreigners who vanish, unforeseen spiritual awakenings,
the healing powers of the Ganges, a river where both
salvation and death flow, and the unexplainable energy that draws
(00:31):
seekers who believe the holy city is a fast track
to enlightenment. One of those seekers was Russell, a Sri
Lankan living in Melbourne who had his sights set on
visiting Rishikesh. It's November twenty eighteen. Russell, a Sri Lankan
(00:53):
living in Melbourne, is at the airport in Melbourne waiting
for his flight to board. Though he's eventually going to
meet up with his family in Sri Lanka for his
cousin's wedding, he's traveling light materials. Things aren't important to
Russell these days. He lives minimally and stopped buying stuff
for the sake of buying it for a while now.
But as he's gotten more dedicated to his spiritual journey,
(01:16):
his family has noticed that he's detaching from the things
that used to meet a lot to him, like cricket.
One day, he gave his bats away and stopped playing
a sport he used to love. Not long ago, he
had a breakdown after he was scammed by a girlfriend.
It left him financially ruined and tested his faith in humanity.
(01:37):
He couldn't believe that someone he had loved, dated and
lived with for a handful of years could be so deceitful.
After hitting this breaking point, Russell's family noticed his deeper
commitment to spiritual growth. But Russell was born a seeker,
driven by curiosity, an interested in human connection. He spent
(01:58):
nine months in Peru with Shaman's, studied multiple religions, and
experimented with ayahuasca, and though he was raised Catholic, he's
drawn Hinduism, which is why his sister Rosita is not
surprised he's decided to take a quick detour to India
before meeting up with his family at the wedding. Unlike Rosita,
(02:19):
Russell isn't married and doesn't have kids, so he's thrown
himself into self discovery and his quest for the next
level of spirituality. This is what drew Russell to Rishikesh,
a seeker with one intention for traveling there, but that
is what might have killed him. An announcement echoes through
(02:42):
the airport. The flight to Derroduna, India is boarding. When
Russell lands in Derradun, he'll hop either a bus or
taxi that will take him to his final destination, Rishikesh.
As Russell steps into the line of passengers, he overhears
someone talking about Vicisht Goufa, a cave carved into a
steep cliff on the banks of the Ganges an hour
(03:05):
from shiksh It's also known as the Jesus Cave, a
name derived from lore that Jesus spent some of his
lost years in India. The lost years refer to an
eighteen year period of Jesus's life from ages twelve to
twenty nine that are not documented in the New Testament.
(03:25):
Various Swamis, male Hindu spiritual teachers in India claim that
during these lost years, Jesus sought solitude and the cavern
of Vishisht Gufa, and in the last century, two swamis
with no knowledge of Jesus's connection to the cave said
when visiting they had visions of Jesus meditating there. Russell
(03:46):
plans to visit the sacred cave and cleanse himself in
the river Ganges flowing through the center of Rishikesh. Ever
since he's been practicing Hinduism, he's felt called to Mother Ganga.
Like the Hindus, he believes she will wash away bad
karma and evil spirits and provide a clean saying that
will reawaken him. His phone vibrates. It's a WhatsApp message
(04:10):
from his sister, Rosita, checking in on him. He lets
her know he's boarding and he'll text her when he lands.
He shuts off his phone in preparation for the thirteen
hour flight, hands his ticket to the flight attendant, who
scans it, then enters the dimly lit jet bridge, boarding
a plane that will take him to a city he'll
never return from. Unlike Jonathan and Ryan's stories, which were
(04:36):
publicized by the media, this is the first time Russell's
story has ever been told. I try to go through
the emails, and it was just too hard, just emotionally.
So I'll just tell you the story. That's how how
I recall it, because I have blocked some of it out.
This is Rosita, Russell's older sister. She's asked that I
(04:57):
not use their surnames to keep anonymity. This is a
deeply personal story to Rosita, but She also has controversial
views about Rishi Cash and what happened to her brother there,
so there is a security in remaining unknown. Rosita describes
what Russell was seeking at that time. He was more
interested in seeking for the next level of spirituality, basically
(05:20):
not being born into a human form again, learning all
the lessons you have to in these human form so
you can move on to the next realm, move on
to the next level. That's what I think Russell was doing.
Rosita had a deep bond with her younger brother. I
recognize this bond because I have it with my siblings.
She's protective, devoted, and today, nearly two years after the
(05:44):
loss of her brother, she's still heartbroken. As soon as
he landed, he sent a message saying, hey, I arrived
in Rishikesh. I'll see you guys in four days. This
is the text Rosie I've been waiting for from her brother.
But when she didn't hear from Russell on November twenty ninth,
the night he was supposed to land and tree lunk,
(06:06):
she started to worry, and when there was still no
word on the morning of November thirty if, she called
the front desk of his hotel to see if he
had checked in, and I said, can you please put
me for the root Russell was staying. They put me
on hold and they come back and said he never
checked in. Straight away I knew something was wrong. Her
(06:26):
husband and cousins told her she was being paranoid. He
must have dismissed his flight. But when it was confirmed
by the airline that Russell never boarded his flight to
Sri Lanka, Rosita's older brother Trevor, who didn't attend the
wedding and was still in Australia, went to the local
police station to file a missing person's report and was
directed to the Australian Embassy in India, but the embassy
(06:48):
wasn't exactly helpful. They kept dismissing Trevor, saying a lot
of people decide to stay in India. They just decided
to hang around and they decide not to contact family.
And we're like, you don't understand. We don't do that.
No matter where we go, we know exactly you know
where our family may bizarre, but Rosita didn't know where
Russell was, so paperwork was filed with the Australian Embassy
(07:11):
in India and on December first, Russell was declared a
missing person. It was official, which sent Rosita and her
family down a rabbit hole of what fs Did he
get beaten up? Has he been robbed? Is he lying
in the hosspital? You know, all these horrible thoughts go through,
but there's always hope that he's alive. And there was
(07:32):
a huge thought that went through our mind. Has he
decided to go into an Ushran? And only after he
went missing we started doing some research on Rishikesh and
then we just found out, oh gosh, we did not
know about Rishikesh, the background, how there's so many people
gone missing and have people decide just to let go
(07:52):
of everything and you know, go into an USh Ran
for thirty days or sixty days and just live this lifestyle.
So that was a hope. This was twenty eighteen, so
if Rosita googled Rishikesh, she'd obviously seen headlines for the
disappearances of Ryan Chambers in two thousand and five and
(08:14):
Jonathan Spallen in two thousand and twelve. Her hope that
Russell hadn't met the same feat but would be found
meditating in an ash room somewhere in Rishikesh was the
preferable outcome, but what happened on December fifteenth, fourteen days
after Russell was declared missing, made for a bleaker reality.
Trevor got an email from the embassy's It stated that
(08:37):
his suitcase and his belongings were found and they named
the place and it was sort of for me, googled it.
It was sort of under this bridge, and you know,
horrible thoughts come in, like why under a bitch? You know,
why he's suitcase and why his belonging said where is he?
And that particular night, Trevor called me and said, Rasia,
it's fifty to fifty fifty percent he's alive, fifty percent
(09:00):
he's gone. And I sort of like refused to believe it.
I'm like, don't say that. But things got weirder. The
embassy was able to track the simcard that Russell purchased
for his phone when he landed in India. They emailed
the simcard information to Russell's family and there was only
one thing left to do. Trevor found a friend who
spoke Hendie and they dialed Indian person answered the phone
(09:24):
and said, I knew someone was going to call. I
found his wallet and the phone, but I actually handed
the wallet into the Australian Embassy in India, but I
kept the phone because I knew someone would call for
him a clue, someone who might lead them to Russell.
But when they contacted the embassy, no wallet had been
(09:45):
turned in, which means there was no additional information about
this unidentified source they had just spoken to. So they
tried russell sim number again. The second phone call was
made to that same number and the person picked up
the phone again, and when the question was asked, where
exactly did you find it? The person got very nervous
(10:06):
and start hesitating to talk and was not comfortable at
all too even as a way he found it, and
then he hung up the phone and several other attempts
were made to contact him, but that phone was switched off.
Rosita said something was off. Either this guy was spooked
(10:26):
and thought he might get into some sort of trouble
speaking to them, or he had something to do with
her brother's disappearance. Either way, it was another dead end
until Rosita and her husband got the call they've been
waiting for. Trevor called my husband and said, I'm going
to send you a link. I want you to have
a look at it, I think I found Russell. Trevor
(10:50):
had found Russell, but not in the way anyone, especially
his family, could ever have imagined. Like Crying Chambers and
Jonathan's Ballen Russell was another missing Westerner in Rashia Cash
and Tell. Rosita's husband, Sean, clicked on that link her
(11:11):
brother Trevor sent Sean had a look at the link,
and sure enough, it was a picture of Russell's dead
body on that website. The website is a database that's
run by the Indian Police called Unidentified Dead Bodies. It
consists of close to ninety thousand bodies. It's disturbing to
look through. But for Rosita, the database gave her access
(11:35):
to her brother. So even though her husband and older
brother persuaded her not to, she knew. In order to
believe Russell was really gone, she had to identify her
brother's dead body. He was just sort of lying on
the ground. He's either washed up or pulled out. You
could see he's bloated, you know. He was just wearing
(11:57):
a white T shirt which looked turned into like a
muddy color obviously from the dirty border. And it was
in Depans, So for him to be in his underpans,
that he was wearing a sarong, which he does when
he goes to ritual you know, and like spiritual retreats
or if he goes to Sri Lanka. And I could
(12:18):
definitely picture him in India just wearing underpans and a
sarong and a T shirt and his thongs or whatever,
just walking around. You know, I don't know what you
call it, but on his wrist, you know, in Hinduism
or Buddhism, like they wear these cotton threads. It's spiritual.
So he had some of that, but that was all.
(12:39):
In Southeast Asia, locals and many visiting Westerners like Russell,
wears ranks, which is a fabric draped around the body
and tugged at the waist or under the arms. The
cotton thread or threads on his wrist could have been
a katuk, usually read it's a ritual protection thread tied
by a priest or guru on the wrist of a devotee.
(13:00):
Russell's body was dragged from the Ganges on December third,
twenty eighteen, five days after he was supposed to fly
to Sri Lanka. The Unidentified dead Body's database did not
mention a cause of death. But before the family could
even think of investigating, there was something they had to
do first. My mom and I would you said, oh
(13:21):
my god, we need to bring him home. They found
him on the third of December. Now we're on the nineteenth.
Russell's body had most likely been in the Ganges for
those five days he was missing, which is why he
was bloated when he was pulled from the river, and
for the past seventeen days his body had been sitting
in a morgue in India, but his family wanted him
(13:41):
home so they could say their goodbyes properly with a
Catholic funeral. When Trevor called the police station listed on
Russell's profile to claim his body, they ran for another shock.
Police told him that within three days of the body
being found, that they cremated Russell and threw the ashes
into the Gangi River. And we were absolutely devastated, you know,
(14:05):
because it's where you used to burying our death. That's
the way we say a goodbye. Now this is just
heartbreaking to imagine. They had found Russell's body and all
they wanted to do was bring him home and mourn
him in the way they were accustomed to. With an
open casket and burial, but he was cremated and in
(14:26):
a way taken from them again. Additionally, because Russell's body
had been cremated, there was no evidence to determine his
cause of death until they received the coroner's report. So
on the coroner's report, number one cause of death for
Russell is death by drowning. Number two cause of death
(14:48):
is blunt trauma to the head. Hearing about this blunt
force trauma made Rosita think back to the first time
she had seen Russell's picture on the database. Now, when
I saw the picture of Russell, I could see this
big bump on his forehead. Could be a possibility that
someone hit him on the ahead and then he fell
into the river or was pushed into the river. There
(15:09):
are so many scenarios. But one scenario she wasn't expecting
was how invested the Indian police suddenly were now that
Russell's body had been identified on the database as an
Australian citizen. She was also surprised by the new information
they shared. Indian police sent the email saying that his
suitcase and his passport was found in the hotel. Now
(15:33):
you don't have to be a genius to work out
that hold on the stories that you guys are sending us,
it is not matching up. First, you said, when Russell
was still missing, you said the suitcase and his belongings
were found under a bridge. Well no, now that Russell
has been found on the internet, now you're saying his
suitcase and his passport and belonging in the hotel. And
(15:54):
also there was another email stating that Russell was very
aggressive and abusive towards the hotel's staff. So this is
the hotel and Risha Cash where Russell stayed and where
police were now saying they had found his suitcase and belongings,
and according to the police, it's also where Russell was
publicly aggressive to hotel staff, which was captured on hotel
(16:18):
cameras November twenty eighth, two days before he was supposed
to leave Risha Cash. So we requested for the video
because now you know, now they're saying he was aggressive
and abusive, chose the hotel staff and the guests, So
I wanted to see the video to see what's going on.
My thing was that's not Russell. If he was, then
(16:39):
something's not right. The police never sent that footage to
Rosie and her family. So you can imagine receiving this new,
unsubstantiated information from the Indian police led to their suspicions
towards not only the police, but institutions like the Australian
Embassy in India that are supposed to advocate for their
(16:59):
country citizens and protect them. But I've also learned from
this experience that they Astralian Embassy in India have no
power over what happens in India. This is something we
followed up on. We'll get into that in a bed
But first, if Russell's aggression was out of character, and
his outburst at the hotel wasn't something fabricated by the
(17:20):
police or embassy, then what happened. There is a huge
possibility that Russell would have whatever they drink, that the
Sadu's drink. You know, if there was an opportunity and
it was presented to him, he could yet he would
have taken it. This drink Rosida is talking about, that
Sadu's or holy Men drink is infused with bang and
(17:42):
intoxicant made from the leaves of the female cannabis plant.
Bang is used by Hindus for spiritual purposes. They drink
it to honor Shiva, the god of destruction, who is
believed to have used the intoxicant to focus inward and
harness his divine powers for the good of the world.
Many Westerners who travel through India seek this extreme high
(18:05):
that some say brings them closer to this elusive idea
of enlightenment and can result in either a happy haze, paranoia,
or just getting racked like one Western I read about
who after drinking bang was bound to his bad and
toilet viciously vomiting for three days strade. So it's pretty
powerful stuff, which might explain Russell's behavior. Well, that makes sense.
(18:30):
If he'd taken it, maybe then he would have had
some sort of an episode, and maybe that's why he
was aggressive or abusive if that email is correct. Rosita
also has speculations about the Sadus, who, in her opinion,
tempt foreigners with these intoxicants. So, having spoken to Indian
born Australians, you know, one person mentioned that it's common
(18:52):
knowledge that there's a lot of Sadus that are not
doing the right thing. You know, they're just scammers who
encourage the Westerners. You know, they think they're better off
moving on to the next journey of spiritualism, meaning leaving
the body that you know we're in. Apparently they encourage
them to walk into the into the river. One person
(19:14):
mentioned that it's common knowledge around Rishikesh for those people
who live there that the Westerners come there to die.
Like Rosita said, these theories were shared with her by
Indian born Australians, So I don't know how much of
this is true. It's just was told to me. We've
dug into the veracity of these claims before and will again,
(19:38):
but right now I want to focus on the effect
these stories had on Rosita. When considering what happened to Russell,
a seeker who traveled to Rishikesh specifically for a spiritual awakening,
but was then found drowned and the same river he
came to cleanse himself in, you can see how for
Rosita these theories could start to feel more like truth.
(20:02):
There was one theory that haunted her, and it's not
about how Russell died, but what happened to him after
he was found. This was something she felt she needed
to share with another Australian family who would also experienced tragedy.
In Rasha Cash, I don't know for what reason during
that traumatic time that his name just came into my head.
(20:26):
I just thought of him, and I just thought of
Dyan Jock. She's speaking about Ryan Chambers, whose story we
told in episode one and two, and whose disappearance she
read about while researching Risha Cash after Russell went missing.
There the Ryan's family deny his seeking anything spiritual in India,
Rosita recognized her brother's language and Ryan's last journal entry,
(20:48):
if I'm not gone, don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm
just freeing minds. And to do that, I had to
free my own. Ryan went missing in two thousand and five,
and ten years later, there's my brother, who's you know,
and he's full of breath Higgs saying the same words.
So I thought that was quite interesting. Two people of
(21:09):
two different generations, you know, two different backgrounds, talk in
the same language. This and some darts. She'd started to
connect around what happened to her brother in India compelled
her to reach out to Ryan's parents, Jack and Diane.
I wanted to reach out, but it took me a
long time because you know, I was very traumatized, like
(21:29):
the whole thing. So when I finally did reach out.
I wanted to tell them my story, and she did.
That's why I met Rosita. I was introduced to her
by Jack after our interview as someone else who had
lost a loved one and reach the cash. But what
I didn't know is why she initially contacted Jack and Diane.
(21:49):
You know, it was very hard for me to tell them,
and obviously it's not very easy for them to hear it.
But I did tell them. You know, I'm so sorry
to tell you, but Ry Ryan's gone. They would have
done exactly what they would have done to Russell. They
would have cremated his body, got rid of the ash.
Because there's no evidence, Rosita believes that what happened to
Russell most likely happened to Ryan. The only difference is
(22:13):
Russell's photo was taken and posted on the Unidentified Dead
Bodies database, but Rosita thinks that was a mistake. He
looked like a local where Trlanken born. So of course
our skin color is dark and we do look like Indians.
You know, people would mistake us. There was nothing that
(22:33):
anyone would think, oh he's a Westerner or he's a foreigner,
you know, And this is why Rosita believes Russell's body
was posted under the Unidentified Dead Body's database, and other
foreigners who blatantly stand out as Westerners are not featured
on the site. I truly feel this is just my
opinion that there is something going on there. We were
(22:55):
just lucky that we found Russell's picture on the Internet
and they made a mistake in uploading an Australian citizen
onto that website. To my knowledge, haven't looked at it.
I asked my brother because I'm not willing to go
on that website. There is no white people's dead bodies
on that Unidentified Dead Bodies in India website. I think
(23:15):
it's just local Indians that they're upload So when you know,
they find the foreigner's body, they're not going to upload
that onto that Internet. I think they've done exactly what
they've done to Russell. They've promated the body, got rid
of the evidence, so the person is missing. It's better
to have missing people so that the foreigners still come
(23:35):
to retrication and spend their money and you know, do
their journey there, than to have them are dead, dead
foreigners and that's not good for business. This is an
extreme theory, but if you consider the ordeal Rosita and
her family went through with the Indian authorities. Her reaction
makes sense to me. I asked in Kite if she
(23:58):
thought Rosida's reaction was justified and if others experienced this
kind of mismanagement with authorities. Yes, it's uncommon to be
frustrated with administrative processes in India. It's quite common. So
when I hear Rosita talk about how tough it was
for her to get information about her brother from the authorities,
(24:19):
it is not hard for me to imagine. Even the
part about not admitting the truth for fear of bad
press is relatable. Every now and then we see some
journalistic report with solid facts and evidence that gets dismissed
by the government because they say it is some sort
of conspiracy to defame the country. So that obviously creates
(24:40):
mistrust in Indians and foreigners alike about the integrity of
these official procedures. So this helps explain some of law
enforcements mismanagement around Russell's case. But what about Rosia's contentious
theory about what happens to missing foreigners in India. It's
a question we've been investigating head on in this podcast.
(25:02):
So this theory around a cover up is when we
need to examine, which we'll do after the break. I
want to examine Rosida's theory about some sort of cover
up around missing foreigners in India. So I'm bringing am
I producing team Gabby Anquita, who have been researching the
(25:23):
topic and have their own thoughts. So just pulling up
this Unidentified Dead Bodies database that Gabby's done a lot
of research on. So, Gabby, since you're familiar with the site,
could you tell us a little bit about it. So, yeah,
the Unidentified Dead Bodies Database was started in two thousand
and four, and it was started as a collaboration between
(25:44):
police departments across the country, and it was mostly started
as a something or like public interest. So yeah, it's
about twenty nine thousand pages total, and then there's about
ninety entries in the database. And I mean, the one
thing that is kind of unhelpful about it is that
more than half of the entries don't have photographs. I
(26:06):
went through some of the latest entries in the database,
and Gabby's right, there are quite a few without photos,
but nearly every entry lists approximate age, sex, height, weight, complexion,
face shape, what they're wearing, and any other identifiers in
the body, like scars or tattoos. I'm looking at the
latest entry in the database. It's listed just a few
(26:28):
days ago. He's a fifty year old male. They give
him an ID number and the district that he was
found in, which was Delhi. The crime was on a
railway in that district. The image below that profile is
harder to look at. The sex is stated as male,
but his face is mangled so it's hard to tell,
and he's laying down in a pool of his own blood. Yeah,
(26:52):
this is hard to look at. So if we go
to the next page, there's a man laying in some
dirt and fallen leaves. He looks almost malnourished. His collarbones
and wristbones are sticking out, and his beard and eyes
seemed to be half open. Profile says he's around thirty five,
and they identify his religion as Hindu. And Keita looked
at the entry with me. It also says reward amount
(27:14):
of zero, which is a little bit sad when I
think of the reward amount that families of missing people
put when they want their family members back. It's almost
just as if a person is just a serial number
and date and so on, And I mean, I understand
(27:36):
that it's really important, but the process can also really
dehumanize someone. That could be really a shock for any
family member or a loved one to look at this picture.
Looking at bodies like this becomes desensitizing, which is disturbing.
I mean, I understand the purpose of the site, but
(27:57):
skimming through it feels just wrong. But we're not looking
at this database for no reason. So Rosita has a
theory that foreigners dead body, specifically white foreigners are not
listed on this database. And the only reason Russell was
was because he was a schu Lankan descent and so
he had a darker complexion and was mistaken for a local.
(28:17):
So I don't know. I mean, what are your guys
thoughts on this? So, yeah, I've gone through I guess
now at this point, I've gone through about two hundred
pages of the database, and I think, you know, that
assessment could be correct in that all of the entries
that I've seen either they have a very apparent complexion
or their complexion is listed. And I haven't really seen
(28:39):
as many lighter complexioned people. I did see one person
who did have a lighter complexion and they identified this
person with they had some tattoos in English, which I
mean that doesn't necessarily mean they are you know, they
aren't from like a western country, you know, like Australia, US,
England or whatever. And I mean that doesn't necessarily like
(29:01):
I don't really know if there is a correlation between
Rosida's theories and the fact that there aren't more white
people showing up in the database. As Gaby said, a
very small fraction of these entries is listed as having
a light complexion, but it's hard to know for sure
because of the status some of the bodies. And while
just through observation we can't legitimately substantiate Rosida's theory that
(29:24):
white foreigners aren't listed on this database, I think it's
important to remember that the database features dead body entries
from a country with a population of over one billion,
so it makes sense that a majority of these entries
are Indian. And Keita did some research about crimes against
westerners in India and found that in twenty nineteen, only
four hundred and nine crimes against foreigners were reported. That's
(29:47):
a relatively small number. And Keita, what are your thoughts
in Rosida's theory and this idea that there's some sort
of cover up around dead foreigners in India. Yeah, I mean,
I won't want to speculate without any kind of investigation
into this, but because we live in India but have
experienced corruption, and we have experienced things where facts are
(30:11):
hidden or action is not taken on time, so it
feels like one cannot entirely doole out the possibility. And
also we keep hearing about either if people come out
and critique of something that is happening in society or
at the government level, then the fact that it is
(30:32):
dismissed as being anti national. So these things to create
suspicion in you and stop you from completely trusting the
organizations that have been put in place to take care
of these things. Gary, I know you've done more research
around the Australian embassy and this idea of some sort
of embassy cover up. Do you think there's truth in that? Unclear.
(30:56):
I reached out to the Australian Embassy and never heard
back from them, and of course that wouldn't mean that
they would have talked to me and be like, yes,
we're involved in lots of cover ups or anything. But
there have been some other cases that are similar where
there have been, you know, parents of foreigners who had
(31:16):
died who were also frustrated with their embassies and with
the police departments. If you are trying to like identify
a cover up, you do google that. The thing that
comes up first is if there was almost a proven,
substantiated cover up that was going on in Goa. Goa
is hundreds of miles away from Racia, Cash and the
(31:37):
other areas we've covered so far. It's by the coast
in the southwestern part of the country. It's a vacation
destination for foreigners who want to lounge on the beach
by day and hit up the clubs at night. But
since two thousand and five, there have been two hundred
and forty five foreigner deaths the local police determined as natural,
but over the years, parents of some of these tourists
(31:59):
managed to get second autopsies which reclassified the deaths as homicides.
In two thousand and eight, fifteen year old British citizen
Scarlet Keeling died in Goa. Her body was found in
a pool of shallow water, bruised and semi naked. Authorities
said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy
found that she was sexually assaulted and had suffered more
(32:22):
than fifty injuries. There was another case of twenty two
year old Felix Doll and again the police said it
was an accidental death, but the second autopsy, done in
Doll's home country of Finland, revealed that there were fatal
injuries inflicted to his skull from a high impact weapon.
Parents of ten of the foreigners who were killed wrote
a letter to India's Prime Minister Modi in twenty seventeen
(32:45):
to demand an unbiased and independent investigation into their children's deaths.
The letter reads, the quality of the work of the
police and GOA should be investigated. Instead of investigating the
murders and killings, the local police want to cover up
the truth. The investigation is needed to reveal the connections
(33:06):
between the locals, the police and GOA, drug mafia and
politicians and their involvement and the deaths of tourists and
locals and GOA. In one interview, Felix Dahl's mother said
that all the facts provided by the police were imaginary
and followed that up by saying something similar to Rosita.
She suspects these deaths were covered up so they don't
(33:29):
affect tourism in the area. The cause of Russell's death
is still unknown, but I'm grateful that Rosita shared his
story because it's one that could potentially shed light on
what happened to others who have gone missing in Raishikesh.
Russell went to Rashikesh specifically seeking this next level of
(33:50):
spirituality and maybe he found what he was looking for.
As a believer in the Hindu faith, Russell revered the
sacred Ganges were Hindu's embraced death as death defines life,
her waters, offering them hope that one day they will
be liberated from an endless cycle of birth and death
(34:12):
and attain nirvana. He was on a spiritual journey, so
we believe that he did die in the Ganges. So
with the spiritual journey that he's when, it's a very
auspicious way to die. So it's a very good blessing
to die in that rivers. So I think we have
to take comfort in that his beliefs and his journey.
(34:33):
So yeah, I know that when it's my time, I
will see him again. We've dug into many theories in
this podcast, which happens when you investigate cases where people
have gone missing. There are too many unknowns, which leads
to even more speculations. But next week well unfold the
(34:56):
story of Charlie Marinelli, whose experience in India is similar
to the others we've shared, But unlike Ryan, Jonathan or Justin,
Charlie's story is not swarming with theories. It provides answers.
He pushed the edges in other ways in the past
before and never went to this edge. I think he's
(35:16):
in trouble because he was definitely looking at somebody in
that dark room. Somebody was standing over him, watching him.
Astray as a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio.
Today's episode of Astray Russell and Risha Cash was produced, written,
and narrated by Me, Caroline Slaughter and Kita anand is
(35:37):
my co producer and Gavie Watts as our supervising producer.
Special thanks to Rosita for telling Russell's story. Astray was
sound produced by Tune Welders, with score and sound design
by Jason Shannon and mix by Harper Harris. Executive producers
are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, and Elsie Crowley. Thanks for listening.
(36:20):
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