Out Cold PT 2

In this concluding episode of a two-parter, Kate and Paul return to Siberia to analyze the mysterious deaths of a group of experienced hikers. With hundreds of theories about this case in existence we learn more facts and get as close to the truth as we can.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried bones.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I had to take a little break.
I didn't want to see any vodka. I didn't want
to look at snow because this was This has been
a heck of a case for us so far. Do
you remember everything we talked about last week, every detail,
including the correct Russian names?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You basically have a team of Russian
students that are going out into the middle of nowhere
up in Siberia and the mountains at high altitude. It
appears they establish a base camp and something happens where
now they're being forced away from this tent. And we
got to the point to where four of the nine

(01:42):
from this team were found and they were found dead.
Two were found by a campfire, and they had evidence
that they had been beaten, maybe torture, and then you
have two others were found even further away up the
side of the mountain with similar types of injuries. However,
none of the injuries. Still, the four victims were determined

(02:03):
to be fatal, and the experts said that all four
probably lived through their injuries but died of exposure out there.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes, you did an excellent job, I would say, of
wrapping that hala up. And then we've got five more
people and a lot of theories floating out there starting
in nineteen fifty nine all the way until now recently.
So let's pick it back up with the search. So
we know that we found Yuri and Kreva and Igor
and Zena. Now we are back to our search. So

(02:37):
this is now March second. We found the four bodies
on February twenty sixth, and on February twenty seventh, Okay,
so about three or four days later we have another
discovery there is another Upi group, which is the university
where a lot of them went. Mancy Shaman, you know

(02:58):
the Mansi group as an indigenous group that lived in
the area also, and they find another tent that the
group had constructed in late January before they went to
that barren slope where the big tent was found. So
nearby is what's called a labase. Have you heard of that?

(03:19):
I had not, No, So it's a large food storage
platform above the ground, so it's a campsite. A little
more than half a mile away from that is a
Mansie chum, which is a little temporary dwelling almost like
a tepee. And I have photos of those if you're
interested in looking at them. But we are not far

(03:41):
also from where we find our next victim.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah. I don't know if I need to see the
Mancy Chum unless there's actual evidence found in there. For me,
it's interesting that this tent they determined was constructed before
the other tent, So this is showing the sequence of
how they traveled, if you will. And they left a
tent in place and then moved on. Okay, and it.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Sounds like nearby I don't think they built this labase.
I don't know if they were using someone else's we
don't know right now or this chum, but assuming they're
reading this from journals, also the description of the way
the group has been traveling.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
So the day after the autopsis on the first four
were done, they find another one of the hikers. His
name is Ruth's Teak, and he is found on the
slope that is just a half a mile from the
cedar tree, so he's close to Igor and Zena, but
they did not find him initially. When they found Igor

(04:42):
and Zena. Rus's Teak is found lying face down and
it looks like he too had been trying to get
back to the final shelter. So you know, this is
just like a mile from the large tent that had
been collapsed and cut, and his head was pointed kind

(05:04):
of towards that tent, and it looked like he had
been kind of trying to get back to it, is
what they say. His head is angled backwards, his left
arm is drawn back but straight, His right arm is
bent at the elbow, his fingers are clenched, and both
legs are bent. His body covers an icy patch, indicating

(05:26):
that he remained alive for a short while laying in
the snow. I don't know. Maybe you can tell me
in a second what that means. His watch is eight
forty five.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, you know, I think there really isn't anything that
stands out about the actual positioning of these bodies, you know,
this with what we're seeing with Rustique, I mean that
just sounds like, you know, a position that he could
have collapsed into. You know that the clenched hands that
we've seen with several of the victims, this just made

(06:00):
result of them trying to keep their fingers warm, right,
So it's probably not indicative of any any type of
fisticuffs that they were involved with at the time of
their deaths. So I think the you know, the ice
found underneath Roostik, you know, and what they the conclusion
that they are drawing is that he stayed alive for

(06:20):
a period of time. Well, he's falling, his body still warm,
it's melting the snow that where he's laying, and then
of course he dies and then his body goes cold,
and then that melted snow just turns to ice. That's
how I'm interpreting that.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, and he is the most warmly dressed so far
of this whole group of the five people who have
been found. So he's got a hat and a jersey on,
and a several different shirts and a cotton sweater. But
you know, I mean, he's still not the way he
should be dressed, the way he should be out in
this cold. He has socks on, but he has one boot,

(06:55):
black felt boot. So here are the injuries that they
can see. His head on both sides is badly bruised.
Across his face and arms are abrasions and scratches, as
well as dry blood. The right half of his face
and his lips are swollen. His fingers have third and
fourth degree frostbite. The skin on his feet is water rotted.

(07:18):
His May eighth autopsy shows that he suffered a fall
or was hit on the head because his left frontal
lobe had been fractured, causing an internal hemorrhage. Like the
other victims, they say none of these injuries would have
been fatal, and there is liver mortis on his back
even though he was found face down.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, so he just like the other four, he's being
beat It sounds, you know, his state address is entirely
consistent with probably he's in the process of taking off
his heavy you know, winter gear, you know, and is interrupted,
he still has one boot on. It doesn't sound like,
you know, whoever did this to these victims didn't allow

(08:02):
Rustique to you know, put a boot on, you know,
so that that might be indicative that you know, he
had come in from the cold and has taken off
his outer garments when being interrupted, or he you know,
maybe he gets a chance to put put a boot on,
but then he's marched out into the cold, and it

(08:24):
sounds like maybe because he's a little bit warmer dressed,
he was able to get further towards that original tent.
But then he's found. After he dies, the liviidity sets
and he's face up and then he's rolled over for
some reason, and it may just be a check is
this guy alive, you know? Or is he dead?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Let's continue on because now we're missing four people and
now we're having an investigation kickoff that is going to
be prejudiced pretty quickly. Remember I told you about the
Mansie people, the indigenous people who were there. I'll tell
you about them a little bit. They are semi nomadic
reindeer herders, and they're fisher people. They're indigenous to western Siberia.

(09:11):
And of course, because of what I told you about
the chum and the food storage space that people knew
was Mansie, they're immediately targeted. And there are rumors that
they had murdered these hikers because maybe the hikers had
trespassed on their sacred land. And there's another theory that

(09:31):
the Mansie murdered the hikers for sacrificial use in a ritual.
And so this, you know, kind of really gets into
some of the wilder theories. But we still have four
more people to find.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, at least with the victims that have been found
the way that they were, you know, beat and then
die from this exposure. I mean, this doesn't sound anything
like the Mansi trying to get people for their rituals.
You know, that's laughable as far as I'm concerned. You know,
I don't know anything about the sacred land aspect, but

(10:04):
also it's you know, what has been happening over time
at this location. Is there anything that predates this particular
crime in which they can point at and say, well,
this is something that we know the Mansie do you know?
And I think from just a pure investigative standpoint, you
have to consider the Mansie because you know, it's it's

(10:26):
really a limited suspect pool out here in the middle
of nowhere in Hyperia. Yeah, you know, but you know,
right now, I'm not feeling the Mansie, you know, unless
you know, we find these other four bodies and there's
something about what's happening to these other four bodies that go,
oh okay, let's reconsider what happened.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
And you know, there's some there's some sort of just
practical aspects to crossing the Mansies off the list, one
of which is, you know, they don't have any sacred
places or stones at this location. And I think what
what Russians and the locals also think is that they've
always been very kind people. They've never been known to

(11:07):
be violent, and they have been helping with the search. Yeah,
you know, they helped guide these people in to begin with,
to this area. And so you have these people who
are heavily involved in trying to find the missing hikers.
So it's prejudice at that point.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I think, Yeah, potentially, I mean with any population, you
can have, you know, somebody that is will you say,
exceptional criminality, Yeah, you know, no matter how peaceful a
part of particular population is you know, so, I think
that's something that would have to be considered. I just
I go back to the journals being classified. If that

(11:44):
is factual, why is the government hiding the details within
these journals. It just doesn't make sense if like, let's
say the Mansies are responsible for these homicides or these deaths,
if you will.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, well hold on to your hat.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
The next theory is mysterious lights. Multiple people, including the Mansies,
say that there were inexplicable flashes of light in the
area around the time the hikers disappeared. So throughout February
and March, there are multiple reports from the Russians and
from the indigenous people of large rings or balls of fire,

(12:23):
and you have to pay attention to this because this
could lead to something actually significant. They're enveloped in a
white fog some of the time, they're moving and changing
in diameter and intensity, and one report described before hiding
behind the horizon, from the center of the ring appeared
as star, which gradually increased to the size of the moon.

(12:47):
It was wider at the front and narrower at the back,
with a tail, and there were sparks flying off of it,
which I thought was a comment, but I think people
knew what comets were in nineteen fifty nine, so it
must not have been a comet. Will play into more
plausible theories later on.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know. It's it's interesting from you know today, they're
referred to as UAPs unidentified aerial phenomena, you know, and
there's been a lot of released military footage of craft
that can't be explained, and some of these UAPs have
you know, these mysterious light aspects to them, you know,

(13:26):
And of course it's like, well, is this something that
is you know, secret technology that the United States or
you know, out there in Siberia, the Soviets were we're
playing with, you know, and and could that be a
reason why you know this these students end up going
out to where the Soviets are conducting some sort of secret,

(13:50):
you know, testing. I want to dismiss that. I mean,
the description of this light is kind of fantastic, but
I don't know, I kind of we still just I
think I just have to keep things grounded in the
foundation that well, we have at this point five victims

(14:11):
that have been beat they've been forced out of their tent,
they die of exposure in addition to the criminal violence.
They're not being vaporized by some spacecraft. You know. It's
I'll be curious to see how this story unfolds. I've
seen enough in the UAP side that it's like, oh,

(14:32):
there might be some credibility there that I used to
just dismiss.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going
to tell you about our next scene, and then I'm
going to show you a map that shows all of
the scenes together because I'm trying to get a better
sense of the distance between you know, these spots that
they don't seem more than a mile to two miles
away from each other, and you know, these are folks

(14:59):
that are used to hiking very very long way. So
we are in a holding pattern for basically all of
March and all of April because the snow is so
thick that nobody can find anything. So they haven't given up,
it's just that they've had to suspend the searches for
a while. In May, the snow starts to melt, and

(15:20):
on May fifth, there is a man see shaman and
his dog. They see cut branches along the tree line
which form a trail, so they follow it about one
hundred and sixty five feet and they find clothing. They
find a pair of black cotton pants and it's missing
the right leg, and then the left half of a

(15:40):
woman's sweater. And we now have the search team back
out from this school and about ten feet ten feet
below the snow, they find the bed of a den
like a hiker's den, and it's covered with fur and
birch branches and scrapes of tattered clothes thing and the

(16:01):
right leg of a black cotton sweatpants and some sweater
parts and some trousers. And then fifty feet from this
den is a spoon, and then there's also a knife sheath,
and then they find four more bodies, but this is
ten feet of snow. The bodies are found eight feet
below the snow and sixty five feet from where they

(16:24):
found this den, where they were pretty certain these four
people were staying. The only way they find the bodies
is they use an avalanche probe. We've seen in variations
in some of these cases, they are punching around and
they hit flesh and they find the other four. So
they find Kolia and then the second woman, Luda Sasha

(16:48):
and another Sasha. So I think I'm saying, Sasha K
and Sasha Z, both men, and they are found laying
face down in a stream, a rocky stream bed of
the Low's Va River. And then I can tell you
about their body positioning and all that other stuff, and
then you can look at the map if you want.
If this might be a good time for you to
also look at the map.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
It would be seen diagrams in Yes.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
I find the first one confusing, but the second one
I think gives you a little bit of a better
idea of where everybody is.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, I definitely was envisioning something very different in terms
of how these bodies were located to each other. But
fundamentally this map, yeah, I guess i'd call it a map.
It's showing the damaged tent in the upper left hand corner,
and then in the lower right hand corner is the

(17:41):
creek and that's where this current four sets of bodies
are found. And then in between the tent and those
four bodies are the bodies of the other five that
lead up to this cedar tree with the broken branches.
So that linear pattern, I guess what would make sense

(18:01):
in terms of you know, they're being marched in a
certain direction the four bodies. It sounds like those four,
you know, were able to construct a shelter you know,
in the snow and survived for a period of time.
Now under that scenario, then I would not expect them

(18:25):
to you know, have been beaten and everything else. But
you're going to be telling me, you know, what the
autopsy results are, right, I.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Am, And I wanted to look real quick. There's a
diagram at the end of that that talks about a
wind slab, and I think that that is the den
that they're talking about, or do you think that's something different?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
That makes sense? In essence, it looks like they found
a ridge in the snow that they may have even
you know, enhanced, and then there's a tent that's put
down into this gully, if you will. So they're using
this snow bank as a wind shelter. So it's just

(19:07):
maybe a survivalist skill, you know, that they knew how
to enact. Yeah, And you know, I guess the question
is is did they is this something that was built
that they knew about and they headed in that direction
after they got forced out of the other tent and
they're you know, underwear basically, or did they construct this

(19:29):
after they had been marched out to that original tent.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, let me give you the autopsy results and clothing
and all that good stuff, and maybe we'll have a
better idea. I mean, I don't think that. I think
they must have dug this den, and you know, I
don't know what the sequences just yet. So I had
said before, they're laying face down in a stream bed.
The men's heads are in the direction of the streams current,
so going with the current. Luda is her name. Luda

(19:57):
is laying on a natural leg, her mouth is a gape,
and her head is directed against the current. Water flows
over her. All the victims are badly decomposed, and all
have suffered violent and catastrophic injuries, they say, And then
I can give you more information. But the note is

(20:20):
nobody has a penetrating wound anywhere.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
If we back up to when this all likely happened,
back in you know, end of January, beginning of February,
that creek is not flowing right, that's solid ground, it's ice,
you know, it's snow. So my senses is that those
bodies ended up at this location when it was just

(20:44):
it was just snow. And then of course, now out
in May, things are starting to melt. There's now this
creek and those bodies are are in the water. I
guess I'm curious about, Yeah, this shelter. You know, did
they live in that shelter for or some significant period
of time before they ended up dead? But with the
catastrophic injuries that you're talking about, you know, maybe they

(21:08):
got away after the initial abduction and then somebody tracked
them down later and sounds like I don't know what
the autopsy results are, but sounds like injured them.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
So let's start with Luda. Let's talk first about what
she was wearing. She has a knitted kind of underhelmet cap,
cotton bra. She's in a T shirt, checkered shirt. She's
got a sweater, you know, not particularly warmly dressed. One
of the sweaters belonged to Kreva, who was our first victim.

(21:39):
At the top. On the bottom, she's wearing men's satin briefs,
a gray woman's belt with garter bands, lights, brown cotton stockings,
black cotton tights and cotton pants, and our feet. She's
wearing two pairs of cotton and wool socks. Her left
leg is wrapped in a grapped from a wool sweater

(22:01):
and a sock. Her tights and pants are both torn,
and in some places her pants are burned. And I
was just thinking about the tent. We haven't found pieces
of the tent yet if they cut it themselves to
wrap something in, you know, I have not read about
the tent, so I don't know what happened to those pieces, Luda. Also,
her face is a yellow brown, extremely disfigured, soft tissues missing,

(22:24):
you know, as would be expected. Her left cheekbone and
other facial skull bones are exposed. Her nasal cartilage is flattened,
her eye sockets are empty. The tissue of her upper
lip is missing, exposing her teeth. Her chest is crushed,
her left thigh is bruised, and her hands and feet

(22:45):
are gray and purplish in hue, and they have water rot.
So is that all decoop position? Being in the snow
for months.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
There's no question that there's a fair amount of decomposition happening.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of this, you know,
lost tissue around the face, the eyes missing, I mean,
there could be some animal activity that's that's occurring, you know.
And again I don't know what types of animals are
out there. You know, you could even have certain types

(23:16):
of birds that may be you know, feeding on these
now exposed bodies with the injuries. You know, her chest
is crushed, as is what you said. You know that.
You know, I'm not sure if that could be you know,
the compression as a result of being you know, buried
under you know, a tremendous amount of snow, or if

(23:37):
there's something else going on there. But it's just you know,
for me, I think what I want to try to
tease out is, well, what exactly is the sequence? Their
state of dress is just like the other victims state
of dress, you know, and we know that they made
it out to that what I'm going to call the
base camp where all the you know, the heavy gear
is and the skis and everything else. And now these

(24:00):
four appear to make it out to this secondary tent location.
They're experienced hikers, they've been out there for a period
of time. They probably headed towards that when they were
afforded the opportunity to knowing that was their best chance
to survive for as long as possible. But the injuries

(24:21):
that they have, you know, it's like Okay, how do
all nine end up getting beat and then some are
are let to, you know, wander off. You know, it's
a very curious set of circumstances, it is.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
And we have a couple of more watches, okay, which
is interesting. That gives us some time. So let me
first tell you about Kolia heat and along with one
of the Sashas, they're both the best stressed. Lots of
clothing on. There's a warm sweater, you know, they've got
fur lined jackets on. They're the warmest out of everybody.

(25:02):
And I'll tell you about Sasha, one of the Sashas
in a minute. He has a fur hat on Koya. Now,
the clothing is interesting. So remember I told you that
Luda was wearing Krevos sweater, right, and Kolia was wearing
the fur hat and coat that belonged to Luda. So
he's wearing Luda's clothing and Luda was wearing something from

(25:26):
Crevo who was at a different location. He has two watches.
One was Creva's and it reads eight fourteen and the
other one that's his is eight thirty nine. And remember
that Igors was five point thirty one, so you might
have to go back to your you know, diagram that

(25:47):
shows where all the bodies are because it doesn't show amorpm.
But is that sequencing?

Speaker 2 (25:52):
It must be, right, I guess I'm really confused at
any type of emphasis being put on the time reflected
on these watches. Of course, you think about a watch,
there's select circumstances where the watch might reflect a significant
event that damaged the watch, and so you know what
time that occurred. See, I know nothing about what kinds

(26:14):
of watches these are, is right now. I'm thinking these
are your standard you know, wind up watches, you know,
and so these these times to me, are only indicating
when the watch is no longer running. It doesn't tell
me anything about what happened to the victims unless there's
something else going on with these watches.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
You're right, it's when it runs out. These don't look
battery powered to me. These are the wind up ones,
you're right.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah. I mean I think that's maybe a good point,
is that they would be pretty diligent about keeping the
watches wound up. But each watch has probably got its
own lifespan in terms of how long it's going to
you know, run before you have to wind it up again. Yeah, so, yeah,
I don't think I can put any weight on what

(26:58):
these watches are saying. Know that, Like what you've said
is that the earlier victim, Igor's watch was at you know,
five point thirty one, and then these later watches found
are all eight thirty nine, eight fourteen, eight forty five.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Right, Yeah, they're all clumped together.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
That's that's interesting. You know, why are those three watches
clumped that way? You know, you know, but I think
I'll have to evaluate, you know, what kind of damage
is being inflicted to these watches that could cause them
to stop to indicate that, you know, a significant event
happened to them at that particular moment.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Well, let me tell you about you know, when the
searchers find Coolia, they said their only observations were that
his face and his body were greenish gray, and his
right arm was bruised. All of his extremities were water rotted.
But the autopsy, if I skip down to that, says
that he died of trauma to the right side of
his head because his temporal bone is fractured in multiple places,

(27:56):
extending to the frontal and spin bones. Some of his
skull had penetrated his brain.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Okay, I wouldn't eliminate let's say I fall onto a rock,
but I mean this tends to indicate that you have
a significant blow being inflicted to his head, you know.
But he's one of the ones that appear to have
survived for some period of time, utilizing this den living
there right, So there there seems to be if I'm

(28:28):
looking at this, you know, I'm playing around, is there
a chance that there's a different sequence of events than
how you've told, you know, how this kind of transpired,
because he kind of started with the bodies that were
found closest to the base camp, and then each time

(28:49):
you have bodies that are being found further and further away.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, you're moving downhill, basically down that slope.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, you know, I'm not sure that that necessarily is
the the right sequence on how these victims were killed
by the offenders, even though you know, some of them
died due to exposure. You know, I think we know
what the base camp just because of all the items
that are found at the base camp. They all made

(29:16):
it to that location and they would not be going
outside without their gear, you know, So that does suggest
I think that the base camp is probably the you know,
the origin, and then there's this distribution. Well, I don't know,
you know, to be frank, I'm not sure about the sequence.

(29:36):
But maybe the way that you've unfolded the findings of
the victims may also be the sequence in which these
victims were killed. I'm not convinced just yet, though.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Just so that everybody knows, the distance between the big
tent and the cedar tree that had broken branches in
that little fire area, so that's where we found Zena
and the other two men was fifteen hundred meters. So
between the base camp and the tree where the first
grouping was found, the distance between the tree where the

(30:14):
bodies the other bodies were sort of strewn about, and
the stream where you've got these three bodies found is
seventy five meters much closer. So what would that say
if this is a crime. They're driven out fifteen hundred
meters away, but the last set of bodies they have

(30:35):
time to dig a din, or maybe they didn't dig
the din and it was there already. I'm just confused
about where everybody is sleeping and for how long. But
they you know, then they said, based on stomach contents,
they will really a lie for sixty eight hours, six
to eight hours after they left that tent.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, I think you know the distance we know based
off of the impressions leading from the base tent. You know,
these victims are being forced out of that tent. They're
not leaving that tent voluntarily. And it appears that all
the victims are found in this somewhat linear pattern, some

(31:14):
closer to that tent, but still, you know, the first one,
the closest victim, was this Zena.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yep, Zena's up first.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Zena, and then it's Rustique. So but fundamentally they're about
and I'm just going to guess, because it's not that
this diagram is not to scale, but it looks like
Zena being the closest to the base camp. She's found
roughly seven hundred and fifty meters halfway between the tent

(31:42):
and the tree. Then you have another one hundred and
fifty meters, and then you you find Rustique there, you know,
one hundred and fifty meters I mean think about, you know,
roughly one and a half lengths of a football field, okay,
and then another on hundred eighty meters, and then now
you have Egor's body being found again you have you know,

(32:06):
one and a half maybe almost closer to two football
fields away, so there's some significant distances between where these
bodies are found. Then you've got Yuri and Creva that
are found at that basically at that tree, and.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
They're found first, remember Paul, so people are walking over
Zena and Rustique and Igor and they're not found for
several days. So it's because they were close to the fire.
Is that why Uri and both URI's were found first
in Creva?

Speaker 2 (32:37):
It may have just had to do with the terrain
that their bodies were on the surface and the other
bodies preceding theirs had been covered by snow due to weather,
you know. So, but it doesn't indicate necessarily that Uri
and Criva were the first ones. But I think what's
significant is is that Uri and Kriva, as you mentioned,

(32:57):
are by the fire. So there did they build the
fire or did the abductors build the fire, don't know.
And then you get past them by only seventy five meters,
and then you got the other four that appear to
have been, you know, possibly living out of this this den.
So it's that that linear pattern, I think is interesting.

(33:19):
The further they got away from the tent. It appears
that there was more time being spent at the locations
where these bodies are being found. Yeah, and so is
it possible that you know, the first, you know, the
ones that are are found closer to the tent died
or were killed you know first, and that these other

(33:41):
victims were allowed to live for a longer period of
time though they are, you know, being beaten on. And
then why are those victims allowed to live longer? Why
are the offenders interacting with them more? Is there anything
particular about their victimology that would suggest that they had
more in greater importance to the offenders than the other ones.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Well, let me tell you the rest of the autopsy
results and then about the two sashas, which might help.
So we established that Kolya had trauma to the right
side of his head, and we talked about some of
the skull had penetrated his brain. So Luda the woman,
Her death had been determined to be a result from
massive hemorrhage into the right ventricle, multiple bilateral rib fractures,

(34:28):
and internal bleeding into the thoracic cavity. The examiner said
that the force that he saw was something he would
see in somebody who was in a car accident at
very high speed. So does that means she's just been
beaten on and died from those injuries and there's nothing
in nature that would have happened to her natural, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's I would say. Those injuries would suggest that she
is when you say beaten, yes, but she's being stomped,
she's being kicked. That's what it sounds like to me.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
This is where the Sasha are found. They're holding each other.
So Sasha k lies curled behind Sasha z as though
he's trying to keep him warm. Sasha Ky is wearing
a velvet undershirt, checkered shirt, a sweater, a couple of sweaters,
and a ski jacket with a torn zipper, and there
are burned spots from the fire previously in tears on

(35:22):
the bottom half of him. He's got a blue satin
briefs and some underpants and ski trousers, and he seems
to be pretty warm too, and some overalls that belonged
to Uri, who was at the first place. So on
his right foot he wears cotton socks and burned wool socks,
and his left ankle is bandaged in gauze. So that

(35:47):
is Sasha k. So he's the one holding Sasha Ze
Sasha Ky. His neck is twisted, his face is yellow
gray with purple spots, which we expect. The skin around
his eyes swets, and eyebrows has been torn off, revealing
the bones of his face. His eyeballs are wrinkled and sunken,
his nose is flattened, his fingers everything is bad because

(36:10):
of the wetness. Now, let me tell you what they say.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
He died of.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
His autopsy indicates that low temperatures caused his death. There's
no speculation on how his other injuries, particularly the deformation
of his thyroid cartilage, influenced his death.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Deformation of the thyroid cartilage I'm seeing.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
I'm trying to figure out where that would even be. So,
the eye sockets and the eyebrows have been torn off,
revealing the bones of his face. His eyeballs are wrinkled
and sunken deep into his eye sockets, his nose is flattened,
and his fingers and feet are putrefied in the wet environment.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, you know, everything there sounds like, you know, decomposition,
maybe some mild animal activity on the face. Anytime there's
damage in the neck area. That's where or I'm going
was there possibly a blow to the front of his neck?
Was he strangled? It sounds like exposure is what killed Sasha.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
K right, You're right, And don't you think that's odd?
So far this is the only person who hasn't had
the life beaten out of him. Basically, they don't find
any other injuries, and he's holding one of the other people.
I'm just saying. I don't want to be a conspiracist here,
but I think it's weird for some reason.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, you know, and you know, the thought has fleetingly
gone through my head. You know, could somebody within this
group have been responsible for in essence, this is a
murder suicide, you know, and so if you have somebody
that isn't showing, you know, violence being inflicted on them,
then you start speculating that maybe that person is responsible

(37:46):
for killing the others. It's just that how does one
person in this group get this entire group to march
out of that tent? I just don't see that happening.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
And they didn't find weapons or anything like that. There's
no gun or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
So I think that, you know, the the abductors. They
had a level of control over all these victims. All
these victims knew as soon as they left that base tent,
you know, they could not survive very long at all.
Yet they were forced out of that tent. So these offenders,
and you know, could one person do this, you know,

(38:24):
with nine nine students though, you know, if this, if
the one offenders has a gun, I mean, it's it's possible.
My sense is it's probably more than than one offender.
The campfire is intriguing, particularly with you have at least
one of the victims, of the four that are found

(38:45):
in the creek, we're showing evidence of sooting or burn marks,
you know, so that would suggest that they were also
at that campfire. You know, did defenders lose control of
those four at the campfire and then had to track
them down? There may be some sequence information there.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
This is your baffling. This is the most baffling case
I think we've had ever.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
You know, and I think it's because of the environment
that they're in. Is part of the complexity, you know,
I even thought, is it possible the reason the abductors,
the offenders are marching the students towards that cedar tree
towards that campfire is knowing that there was that den
out there? Did the offenders actually build that themselves? Is

(39:27):
that where they originated out of? You know? And then
the four just happened to, you know, play hide and
seek with the offenders there for a period of time.
Who knows?

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Who knows. Let's get back to the person being held
in this embrace the other, Sasha, because that's the final person.
So we have all nine people accounted for at this point.
Let me tell you his injuries. So Sasha Kay, you know,
as we know, didn't have any injuries. Sasha z is

(39:56):
wearing a lot of clothing, you know, one of the
top three wearing a lot of clothing. He has a
compass on his wrist, and you know, various quilted He
has quilted boots and several different layers. So his face
is greenish gray. I think you're gonna say, decomp on
all of this. There's an open wound on the right
side of his skull, exposing a two and a half
by three inch area of the bone. His eyebrows are

(40:19):
missing and his eyes are absent from the sockets. His
nose is flattened at the base his chest is crushed
and his limbs have putrefied in the water. Now, the
autopsy on Sasha Z is his right ribs in scapula
are fractured in multiple places. And like Luda, Sasha died

(40:40):
from internal hemorrhaging. So Sasha's been hurt too. There's only
one person out of this whole group who hasn't been injured.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Considering that the one person that doesn't have any significant injury,
Sasha K is sitting there holding on to Sasha Z. Now,
I'm going, well, is it possible Sasha K could have
done all of this? I just I don't see how
Sasha K could get this entire team to voluntarily walk

(41:10):
out of that base camp. That just doesn't make sense
to me, because everybody knows no way are we going
to survive?

Speaker 1 (41:16):
And it gets a little more complicated to so let
me tell you about some of the tests they ran.
They did toxicology, they ran all kinds of tests, including radiation.
The forensic analysis of this group of nine indicates that
some of the clothing contain traces of radiation. The brown
sweater worn by Luda, the one that belonged to Korea,

(41:38):
and there's a belt from another sweater and the bottom
of the part of the trousers worn by Sasha K
all have traces of radiation. Now here's the thing. Because
Luda and Sasha K's bodies were found in running water
once all the snow melted, months after they died, researchers
are saying. What the forensic scientists are saying is that

(41:59):
the radiation level when the radiation was exposed to these
people must have been incredibly high. Because running water would
have wiped away radioactive contamination from clothing. It doesn't totally
eliminate it, but they said from it still being on
their clothing, the radiation had to have been high when
they were exposed to it.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
This is bizarre, bizarre. I know, I've never had a
case in which the pathologist was going, well, we better
check for radioactive material, right, But you're not.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
You're not an investigator in the Soviet Union, right, there
were radiations everywhere.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
There's there's a reason why, this why the authorities needed
to run this test. They were aware that there was
that possibility. Now they're not indicating what type of radioactive
material they found, are they? You know, are we talking uranium?
Are we talking plutonium? You know, things that you go, oh,

(42:56):
that's significant, are you There's many other elements that possess
you know, radioactive isotopes, you know, and it could be
something that is commonly found in the environment out there,
you know, so that would have to be eliminated. And
I would imagine, you know, they had a sense of, well,
what is the radioactive material that these bodies are found,

(43:18):
and it's got to be something that's foreign to that
environment if they're looking to see if that's present. And
so I think from my perspective as i'd want to
know more about what this radioactive material is and you know,
what kind of sources exist for that type of radioactive
material and is it something again going back to the

(43:39):
journals being classified, is it something that the Soviets were
experimenting with using you know at the time, you know,
is this an area where the Soviets were doing atomic
bomb tests? You know, and there's you know, just foreign
radioactive material all over the place. So I think that
that deepens my suspicion that the offenders in this case

(44:04):
probably had some affiliation whatever the Soviets were doing at
this location.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
You're about to get a lot more information about that.
I'm not sure where ever, going to get a satisfactory answer.
But here's where it comes from.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
There are seventy five different theories about how they perished.
The theories ranged from avalanches and high winds, to the military,
to the Mansie, the indigenous people attacking them, the paranormal
explanations like alien abductions. Yet there's a yetie attack, of
course thrown in there. Had the Mansie killed the group

(44:37):
because they were on sacred land? Had they gone mad
after eating hallucinogenic mushrooms these hikers, the Manzie would dry
out these mushrooms and they would hang them on the
trees to dry. Did they find all these mushrooms and
eat those? Had the hikers stumbled into a secret zone
for testing nuclear weapons? Were they the victims of a
military experiment. Had they been incapacitated by poisonous rocket fuel

(45:00):
and then staged to look as though they had died
of hypothermia? Is it the KGB? I mean, there's a
They even blame the CIA, you know. So they were
all over the place. So they closed the case in
nineteen fifty nine, and the Soviet Union says that they
died from a compelling natural force and they blamed the leader,

(45:21):
who was Igor. So Igor's last name was diote Love.
They named this part of the mountain after him. They
named it a Dailuf Pass. But the government ultimately blames
Igor for leading them in the wrong direction where they
had intended to go. So they closed this case. But

(45:43):
then weird things start to happen. The lead investigator gets
transferred to a small town in a completely different country.
There's an inspector another person who's fired when they shouldn't
have been. The area becomes off limits to the Mansia
hunters and skiers hikers for years after that. And then,
of course I told you already, all the files and

(46:04):
the photographs and the journals, everything is classified. They made
it classified when they closed this case. It was, of
course very suspicious. But now there are more theories because
they did open up the files in two thousand and nine. Okay,
so there are investigators even into the nineties who think
it was just aliens because of there were burn marks

(46:27):
on the trees also, which I just thought, I guess
was going to be from the fire, but there were
odd bird marks around. There was a hiker who didn't go,
Remember I told you he got sick and the hikers'
diaries all entered the public domain. So Yuri Uden, who
was one of the hikers who had to bail out,

(46:47):
he published his memoirs and he thinks that the party
was killed as the result of military testing. He said,
it's obviously a Soviet cover up, and to support the theory,
he says that and this was something that was covered up.
Also that the Menci hunters in nineteen fifty nine and
then in two thousand and eight found some strange metallic

(47:09):
fragments at the scene. There was also a three foot
long piece of metal that was not part of the
hiker's equipment. They were the components of a Soviet ballistic missile.
And so Uri his feeling is that they or killed
by this missile and they were forced to flee at gunpoint,

(47:31):
or because their injuries were so extreme, potentially, you know,
maybe the military came down to see what happened and
they either froze to death or were murdered by military operatives.
And that is the theory of the families. That's what
they think happened. Better than aliens for sure, but that's
what they think happened.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
I think I lean in that direction is that you know,
there was a there was something going on at that
location that these students ended up being in the middle
of and they weren't supposed to be there. They maybe
they witnessed something that they shouldn't have seen, and now
you have them being eliminated, you know, the you know,

(48:11):
the abductors marching them out of that tent and knew
as soon as they got out of that tent that
they would not survive. You know, so in some ways,
maybe the original intent was is just to have all
of them die from exposure, just to kind of keep
it as sanitary as possible and as unsuspicious as possible.
But some of them put up a fight, and now

(48:31):
they're having to inflict violence, and some of them are
trying to run away. You know, maybe the offenders lost
some control. This seems to make sense with me just
from the classified nature. The way the case was originally
closed very quickly back in nineteen fifty nine. You know,

(48:51):
authorities wanted to test for radioactive material. That all just
seems to add up now they didn't. They weren't injured
because of a ballistic missile. I don't buy that at all.
You know, maybe there was a ballistic missile that you know, detonated,
you know, and there were some military personnel that were

(49:12):
part of that experiment and then saw the students and go,
they can't be seeing this. You know, there's top secret
stuff going on here. So I'm I kind of am
on board with with that theory. For sure. I'd be
more comfortable if I could better sequence what's going on,
to try to figure out, you know, exactly how the offenders,
you know, ultimately got all nine of these students, you know,

(49:38):
and controlled them and killed them. And I'm just uncomfortable
with you know, what I know about this at this
point in time. But I think I agree with the families.
You know, this is what it seems like from my perspective.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Well, let me tell you they did launch missiles in
this area, but the Soviet government says they didn't land
anywhere near that location. Yeah, take that grain of salt. Obviously,
the case is reopened in twenty nineteen, just a few
years ago. Of course, it is the Russian government who's
opening it, and because there's so much public interest, So

(50:11):
the prosecutor has a theory, and that theory seemed outlandish
to the families, and they don't believe it. It's about
an avalanche, and I'll explain it to you. But before
you talk about avalanches, I'll tell you that there were
quite a few experts who ran simulations on the prosecutor's theory,
and it was possible that it happened. But I got
to tell you what the theory is. So you're ready

(50:32):
for that theory, Let's hear it. The prosecutor says that
it was caused all of this was caused by what's
called a slab avalanche, and that is a type of
snow avalanche that is a cohesive layer of a slab
of snow and it breaks away from the underlying snowpack
and slides down a slope as a single unit. And

(50:55):
on your little package that I sent you, it talks
about you can see what they mean by the slab
coming straight down, because they do seem like they're kind
of in a straight down path, coming straight down and
essentially burying all of this. Initially, we can talk about
sequencing in a second. Let me tell you what the

(51:16):
rest of what he says. So the families and a
lot of other people call bs on this. They said,
the thirty degree slope of the mountain isn't steep enough
for an avalanche to form. There's no evidence that the
avalanche degree is anywhere at any of the sites where
the bodies were found. There were not any other indicators
of an avalanche, like broken trees or swept snowfields. The

(51:36):
skis and the tent poles were sticking up in the snow,
and the Manzies had never even heard of an avalanche
in the region. And the prosecutor refutes that, and these
experts put together simulations, but there's a big difference between
could this have happened and did it happen? So they say, technically, yes,
it could have happened. Did it happen, there's no proof,
And the Mansies, who have no dog in the fight,

(51:57):
say no, We've never even heard of an avalanche happened
during that time period. Had you heard of that a
slab avalanche?

Speaker 2 (52:03):
You know, I may have, you know, I, of course,
I'm more familiar with with the you know, these avalanches
where you have a whole this huge snow pack that
comes down the side of the mountain. I'm really just
not buying that, you know. I've gone back to the
you know, the overall photo of where that base tent
was found, you know where you can see the tent

(52:26):
and you see, you know, it looks like nine ten
pairs of skis sticking vertically up out of the snow,
like by five feet. It's not like they're buried, they're
literally on you know, they just like somebody has just
stuck them down there. You know, I did you know
early on comment about the snow on top of the

(52:48):
tent fabric it looked chunky like somebody had put that
on top. But going back to you've got that cedar
tree where somebody has built a fire. You have two
bodies that are there, then you have the two other
bodies or the four other bodies where it appears that
they may have been trying to live out of that
then for some period of time. So under the avalanche theory,

(53:12):
you know, the first three victims that were closest to
the tent, did they succumb to the avalanche and then
the others survived it but they just didn't have sufficient
gear to handle the elements. But when you start talking
about crushed rib cages and broken scapul them, could that
have happened in avalanche? Sure? But how long is somebody

(53:34):
like that going to survive afterwards. I think I agree
with the families. That's just not passing muster from my perspective.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Well, let me tell you what the prosecutor. I've never
heard about sequencing what you and I have been talking about.
But this is what he says he believed is the
sequence of events. It explains where everybody is. Okay, So
what he said that is a slab of snow slid
over the tent. This was not part of the avalanche.
This was like an initial slab of snow which would

(54:03):
have indicated an avalanche. The hikers evacuated the tent, they
headed to the safety of the tree line, and they
started a fire near the cedar tree. So there were
different levels of broken branches. He said that maybe they
found it too hard to start a fire with the
young tree branches below, so they felt compelled to climb
the tree and break off the larger branches, which you know,

(54:27):
they're trying to explain why. Like I said, there's different
levels of broken branches. He does say that he thought
the biting of the flesh from Kreva was creva basically
going crazy, you know, from frostbite and everything else. But
he thinks that the skiers cut off their clothes to
stay warm from initially whoever died first, and that's why

(54:50):
we end up with all of this switching of clothing.
Three tried to return to the tent we talked about
before on the slope, but became discombobulated and froze to death.
He blinded two people and led them ninety feet downhill
from where the tent had been discovered, and he asked
them to find their way back, and of course they couldn't.
The remaining four hikers dug out the snow did, but

(55:12):
it was hollowed out by the river and as a result,
it collapsed, and this is where the severe blood force
injuries came on the hikers that were found there. And
then of course you've got scavengers and everything else, and
so there, that's why he was saying there was a
difference between the times when maybe when people died. So

(55:33):
he's trying to sequence it, and that's what the prosecutor says.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
I'm skeptical about the avalanche theory. I'd want to see more.
It just seems I think I still have to go
back to the government classifying this case, classifying the journals
authorities knowing to look for radiation. There's something along those

(55:56):
lines that suggest something more nefarious than a natural accident.
I just I will agree that the totality of the
injuries across all the victims, I can't say with confidence, well,
this is definitely homicidal violence, and could much of it

(56:19):
be accounted for by, you know, being in an avalanche. Possibly?
You know, I think I've just got a healthy amount
of skepticism on that, as I do on everything else.
On this case, you know, this is one where I'd
have to roll up my sleeves and really dig into
it before I maybe got confidence about one theory over another.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
It's a mystery that I mean, there are websites built
on the story, and I know Allison had I think
double the amount of research. We just couldn't get through
all of it. I mean, there were loads of other things,
and so I had to stick with the things that
I thought were the most important. But yeah, this case
is a really big mystery. And we've done some cases
where we just kind of say, I don't know what happened.

(56:58):
Remember the guy who was found dead between the two
haystacks in England and these sort of strange phenomena that
could go either way. And I remember with that guy,
how did he get out there to begin with? And
it was a long way away from where he was
going to school. And so with some simple explanations to
fill in the blank, we might both go, oh, okay,
this is the thing that might make sense here. But

(57:20):
with missing pieces of information, it makes it so much
more difficult. So I know how frustrating it would be
for forensic scientists and for investigators on anything like this.
This is an obsession for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Yeah, yeah, no, I can understand. It is a big mystery.
It's you know, whether or not there's sufficient documentation to
truly get to the bottom of it. I who knows,
you know, it's just and to say this is caused
by an avalanche. Maybe.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
So do you need vodka? Now you don't like vodka,
I'm pretty.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Sure you like I can? I can, I can drink vodka, okay, all.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Right, yeah, sure, so you could celebrate the end of
this flipping case. Right, we're not going to talk about Russia.
I know we're not going to talk about Russia next week,
So that's it. I would like a more straightforward case
next week because I don't like unsolved cases. I know
you do, but this feels so unsolved to me. But
I'll have thrown them in there. So I'm glad that

(58:16):
you were able to flex your investigative muscles on this one. Especially.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
I'm not sure how much flexing I did. Russian. Yeah,
you know, it's definitely outside my wheelhouse. But you know,
maybe over this Colorado winter, I'll start paying closer to
attention to evidence and snow, and I know, see if
I can get greater insight the next time you bring

(58:41):
me a Siberian homicide case.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
What if the avalanche is the real color? What if
it's Mother Nature. It's a bitch, She's a real killer
out there. So so we'll on that note, I will
see you next week with.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
A different case. Awesome looking forward to a case.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
This has been an exactly right production for.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones sources.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's
cold Cases, is also available now.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
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