Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may
not be suitable for all listeners. From iHeartRadio and Neon
thirty three, I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona,
the story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing
his wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and
(00:21):
escaping into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting,
Robert Fisher, and I need your help. What got me
about this case? Where the caves, people often pitch me
story ideas. Many are good, few are great. It's extremely
rare to find one that warrants two years of exhaustive
(00:44):
investigative labor. There has to be an X factor. A
man kills his family, blows up their house, and flees
into the wilderness. Go on, then escapes or dies in
a cave. Okay, sold? I picture a goony style skeleton
in an underground cave in the Arizona Mountains, A romantic,
morbid Western adventure. Of course, I want to search the
(01:06):
caves myself, but first I need to find them. And
let me tell you, the Arizona caving community is the
most secretive group I have ever encountered. More than anyone
I met while reporting on the Mafia or nine to
eleven or anything. Really, no one will tell me the
location of these caves, and they're not on a map,
but I know that they're very close to where police
found Mary Fisher's forerunner, Find the suv, find the caves.
(01:30):
For months, I examine every piece of data for clues,
every news report, every police record. I'm proud to say
in the end my best final guess is within a
quarter mile of the actual spot. But that's not good enough.
These aren't Hollywood caves. They're holes in the forest floor,
tiny dark doors into a subterranean world. They're easy to
miss in a vast wilderness. I need the exact spot.
(01:54):
I need help. This is where I introduce you to
Paul Gemperline. Hey, y'all, Paul is a fan of Season
one Missing in Alaska. Of the thousands of people who
contacted me, he's been the most helpful when I choose
this case. I email Paul, hoping to loop him in
as an amateur researcher and satellite imagery analyst. Unsurprisingly, he
(02:14):
says yes. Surprisingly, he tells me he's also a recreational caver,
an intelligent tech savvy caving superfan a perfect fit the plan.
Our producer Chris and I will go into the woods
with Scott Steal Detective TJ Juran trying to find the
forerunner spot. Based on my research and TJ's memories, I
all video the woods and from his headquarters in Kentucky,
(02:37):
Paul will try to pinpoint exactly where the SUV was abandoned,
like literally the tree was parked against. So one pleasant
Phoenix morning, Chris and I meet up with TJ and
drive into the mountains. A twist here, A turn there.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Okay, so this is Young Road.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Turn right now, So.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Now we're going to start heading down to.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We descend from the top of the muggy on rem
that jagged strip of cliffs extending across Arizona. Young Road
is paved for a bit. Then Bumpy, look at my
fucking back windshield. Oh fuck, So you used to have
a Bronco. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I actually bought it in ninety four, early the year
he was arrested. And I go to the Ford dealship
and there's a white Bronco and I told the guy
I don't want to fucking white. So he shows me
all these different colors and I picked one that was
turquoise green, but it had, you know, the white top.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
It had the turquoise top, and it looked stupid. So
he goes, we're here, come around back. Let me show
you what else we got, and he takes me around back.
There's like fifteen white Broncos lined up. I'm like, I
told you, I don't want to know J Bronco.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
We're driving down this dirt road faster than OJ on
an LA Highway when.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Your destination is ahead on the left.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
We're here where.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
There should be a little road that we can turn
left onto it. No, holy shit, that's it.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
That's it. Yeah, huh shit.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
We turn onto a raggedy side road and park.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It should be right generally in this direction.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Do you want to walk?
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
An eerie silence forms the soundtrack of the forest, interrupted
only by our footsteps in the wind. I pull out
my phone so I don't have cell service, but I
have GPS, so since the map is loaded, if we
(04:54):
start walking, we'll see okay, well we're here.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
And then we'll get right to that spot.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
So we walk.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Watch where you walk, rattlesnakes and bears.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
TJ and I head in different directions. Memory guides him.
GPS guides me.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Do you mind if I walk to finish the coordinate?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
TJ yells at me to follow him. I can tell
he's kind of pissed. I ignore him and speed walk away.
We've made it so far. I'm not stopping until I
reach these coordinates. I think this is it. Our producer
(05:33):
Chris is stranded in the middle, unsure who to follow
me or TJ. TJ, the cave's over here. I found it.
TJ walks over.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
That's it. That's the cave, the cave.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
That shall not be named. I know its name, but
I've been asked by cavers not to publicize it. They're
worried a name will help people find and vandalize it,
which means I get to rename it Apex Simple, the
name of my high school. Winding through the forest, I
spot a sinkhole maybe thirty feet wide thirty feet long.
A wash or seasonal creek bed flows right into it. Today,
(06:12):
there's no water, one hundred percent dry. The sink is
filled with branches and leaves and dirt. A fallen tree
crosses from one side to the other. A precarious bridge
peering down maybe twenty feet at the bottom between craggy rocks.
There it is the cave entrance. I know the Forerunner
was parked near here, within one hundred and fifty feet.
(06:33):
The problem is it all looks the same trees, bushes, rocks.
This will take more detective work, so I video it
than TJ. Chris and I walk back to the car.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Jesus Christ. Johnny made me fucking sweat.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
TJ and I laugh about bolting in different directions, yelling at.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
Each other, and then some poor sap caught in the middle.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, sorry, guys, but we made it. Back in Phoenix,
I send my video to Paul Gemperline. I often joke
that these stories turned me into John Nash or Carrie
Matheson or Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a
crazed person surrounded by maps and charts and sticky notes.
Paul puts me to shame. I see his computer monitors.
(07:15):
They're playing a dozen videos simultaneously. He's comparing old footage
of the Forerunner recovery, every archived angle to video. I
took in the woods. Here a tree, there a bush,
Here's some rocks. They are a shadow. Can we narrow
it down? Can we find the exact spot where Robert
left Mary's forerunner.
Speaker 8 (07:33):
I think I've figured it out, when a little bit
crazy in the process.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, this genius man found it.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
I've identified those double trees. I've identified this dead tree.
I've identified this leaning tree, this tree here, I've identified
the dead one there.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
VOILA. Thank you, Paul. So at this point we found
the cave and the fore runner spot, which allows Paul
to search old satellite imagery for any photos taken between
April tenth and April twentieth, two thousand and one. Why
let's say we find an image from I don't know,
April sixteenth. Can we see the fore runner. If so,
we can narrow down how long it was in the woods.
(08:10):
Tighten the timeline. Paul starts to rule out or in
dozens of satellites. It's a taxing, months long chore with
no payoff until one day.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
An email from Paul.
Speaker 8 (08:22):
The good ish news is that the spot for satellite
took two ten meter resolution photos of the Toyota location
on April sixteenth, two thousand and one. We got lucky
with this because there is zero percent cloud cover and
the bit of overlap between satellite images happened to work
out that the location was photographed twice. We're even more
lucky because there's also a fifteen meter resolution Landsat image
(08:43):
of the area taken on April fifteenth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Paul strikes again. He finds images of the fore runner
spot taken by two different satellites during the correct period. Unfortunately,
that's where the good news ends.
Speaker 8 (08:55):
Only about four percent of a fifteen meter pixel would
be filled by a toyota. Additionally, it would be under
tree cover and also possibly split across as many as
four pixels.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So if you zoom in down to the pixel on
a fifteen meter resolution SAT image, a four runner would
cover only four percent of that pixel. Tantalizingly close, but
useless for us. We need high resolution photos. It's frustrating
to stare at my screen at this wide swath of
Arizona from the right time frame, knowing the fore Runner
is likely down there somewhere. I zoom into the spot
(09:29):
where Greg the camper found it. This is the part
of CSI when I'd say enhance and the image would
resolve to finer detail, but in reality it doesn't work
that way. Blurry blurrier, blurry, IST one pixel no detail.
We've now ruled out all but three satellites our last
hope IRS one, c IRS one D, and Arrows A.
(09:52):
The first two were operated by the Space Agency of India,
the third by an Israeli company. As Paul digs around online,
I email the Indian and Israeli embassies in DC. Paul
soon determines there's no way the Indian satellites capture the
photos we need. The final final hope is aeros A,
which would give us two meter images detailed enough to
(10:13):
see the fore Runner. In August twenty twenty three, I
get an email from the Israeli embassy saying they'll check
on it. Six weeks later, Hamas attacks Israel war breaks out.
I never hear back from them again. We still haven't
determined whether or not Aerosa captured imagery of the fore
Runner spot in April two thousand and one. If you
can help, please contact us. Okay, so we found the
(11:00):
four Runner spot and a cave. What about other caves
in the area. My hope is that someone will give
us a list, or better yet, a map. That's dashed
immediately when I realized that the Arizona caving community is
something of a secret society. They do not like outsiders,
especially reporters.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
The joke in the caving community is say, hey, I'm
going caving in Arizona, and the joke is there's no
caves in Arizona.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Ken Bailey a caver in Kentucky, and.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
We all have a big laugh because no one is
going to tell you a location of a cave in Arizona.
It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You'll find two modes of thought in the caving community.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Dave Decker a caver in New Mexico.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Arizona is kind of like on the far side of that,
which is, we don't have any caves, so don't come
here looking for caves. And the reason that they want
to keep things secret, and I'm more along these lines myself,
is that you've got this group in the general public
that they don't care about the caves, they don't care
about the wildlife, they don't care about the archaeological history
that may be associated with it, and they just want
(11:55):
to go in there and party, throw beer cans around,
knock down the stalactites, and spray paint the walls.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
This is critical to understand. The caving community is secretive
because they've been burned repeatedly. Vandals routinely desecrate pristine caves,
destroying irreplaceable features of beauty that took thousands of years
to form. It's not that these cavers are asocial. They
can be friendly. It just pains them to see something
so elegant, something they love deeply defiled, so they turn inward.
(12:26):
They're suspicious of outsiders. They have a code. Don't speak
to outsiders, especially not a podcaster looking for the body
of a killer. Beyond vandals, even people who mean well
can unintentionally do irreparable harm. One big concern is white
nose syndrome, a fungal disease that kills bats more than
six millions since two thousand and six. Humans can spread
(12:48):
it to unaffected caves where bats hibernate. There's more, but
you get the idea early on. I try to build trust.
I tell cavers that I worked for years at a
biodiversity research and in stad I care about nature. I
love nature. That doesn't work silence, I fail to be frank.
(13:08):
It kind of pisses me off. I have ten million
things to do. I'm trying to report this story responsibly
and no one will help me. Meanwhile, YouTubers who just
don't care are recklessly going into many of these caves anyway. Slowly, though,
I earned some trust. More so, several cavers help me
off the record because I learn information independently, and now
(13:29):
they need me because they don't want certain things publicized,
like the name of the cave one hundred and fifty
feet from where police found Mary's forerunner. Keep in mind,
I already committed to not publishing coordinates or directions or
anything like that, but the name, not even the name.
I think this desire for secrecy will backfire, but I'm
honoring their wishes. To this day, I still don't know
(13:52):
exactly how many caves are within a mile of the
forerunner spot, at least four, including Apex, again only one
hundred and fifty feet from where police find the fore runner.
Our producer Chris and I do a little test. We
park a Subaru cross track at that exact spot. We
walk to Apex and can still easily see the cross truck.
(14:13):
It makes sense why police thought Robert Fisher was hiding here.
They couldn't enter it in two thousand and one, the
entrance was too tight. Instead, they called a plumber who
snaked in a drain camera. No sign of Fisher. Forty
one club. Forty one club is on tribal land the
Ford Apache Indian Reservation. Police teargased it in two thousand
(14:34):
and one. No sign of Fisher. Pishee Burrow, pishibo ro
though I've seen alternate spellings. It's unclear if police attempted
to search it and Redman Redman is locally famous. Police
tried to search it. No sign of Fisher. There's something
(14:55):
you should know about Redman. Another reason for all the secrecy. Caves,
even popular ones like Redmen, can be deadly. You have
to worry about sliding into a crevasse. You have to
worry about rocks breaking off and bashing in your skull.
You have to worry about bad air decaying or antiicmatter
creates pockets of air saturated with carbon dioxide. It can
(15:16):
kill you. You have to worry about critters, snakes, mountain lions, bears.
You have to worry about hypothermia. You even have to
worry about the rapture and extreme anxiety that you need
to get the out now. Inexperienced people can easily die
in caves. In fact, one died in Redman. His name
was Aaron's Standage. On February twenty fourth, two thousand and one,
(15:39):
only six weeks before the Fisher murders, Standage and a
friend descended into Redmen and traversed it until they reached
a flooded sump or passage at the back of the cave.
The friends squeezed through a three foot pole and swam
ten feet underwater, surfacing in a cavern with only six
inches of air between water and the rocky ceiling above.
(16:00):
Standards swam into the same cramped space according to the
pacin roundup, bobbing in the water breathing scarce air. They
debated what to do. The friend turned around. When Standage
didn't follow, the friends sought help. A rescue diver entered
the flooded swamp through the three foot hole feet first,
pulling an air tank behind him. Navigating underwater, he bumped
(16:22):
into a body. Using his legs. The diver pulled the
body out of a crevice slowly through the sump to
the surface. Neither Standage nor his friend, a certified diver,
took any safety precautions. According to the Heela County Sheriff's
Office quote, they were strictly diving in, holding their breath,
swimming underwater, and hoping they had air in the next cavern.
(16:44):
My goal here is not to scare you off from caves.
They can be places of discovery and adventure, of camaraderie
or solitude. With experience or guides, They're typically safe, but
you need to exercise caution. Caves are unpredictable. Even profession
oles die. The most famous death occurred ninety nine years ago.
A man named Floyd Collins got stuck in a cave
(17:06):
in Kentucky, pinned in place by fawn rocks for weeks.
Dozens of men tried to save him. The rescue became
a national spectacle. Millions followed updates via radio. Tens of
thousands showed up in person. Vendors sold everything from balloons
to hamburgers. According to The Daily Beast, Bread and Circus,
a newspaper reporter, William Burke Miller, only five foot five,
(17:30):
even managed to crawl to Collins and interview him. Miller
won a pulitzer. Collins died for years. His body was
a tourist attraction, displayed in a glass covered tasket. Pay
a dollar enter a cave, see a corpse. In nineteen
twenty nine, someone stole the body. It was recovered minus
a leg. Finally, in nineteen eighty nine, Collins got a
(17:51):
proper burial. Since the Collins spectacle, caves have popped up
repeatedly in mass media. In nineteen seventy three, Cormack McCall
the published Child of God, a novel in which spoiler alert,
a man kills a woman, burns down her house, and
flees to a cave. In two thousand and five alone,
Hollywood gave us the Cavern Spolunker's Fall, Prey to a
(18:12):
supernatural force in Russian caves six percent, on Rotten Tomatoes,
The Cave Monsters Huntsplunkers in Romanian caves twelve percent, and
The Descent, set in western North Carolina, eighty seven percent.
I love that film. I saw The Descent in a
theater a week before moving to Asheville, North Carolina for college.
(18:33):
There is, of course, so much more caves in literature
and song and lore, from Plato to Mumford and Sons
to the Lord of the Rings. Seijin Pang lived in
a cave for seven years. A cave in Kenya gave
us Ebola a cave in Greece gave us Armageddon. John
of Patmos had apocalyptic visions and recorded the Book of
Revelation in that cave. I once hiked Devil's Courthouse, a
(18:55):
mountain in North Carolina with a cave that, according to
Cherokee legend, is home to a plant eyed giant named Judhicola.
Judahicola controls wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. We rarely see
caves in a positive light. They're usually scenes of fear, horror, death, isolation.
That's what we project onto them. But extricated from human narratives,
(19:17):
they're undeniably sublime, exquisite quirks of nature. They form in
many ways. The ones near the Forerunners spot where police
thought Robert Fisher was hiding, are called solution caves.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
They have been carved out over the course of hundreds
of thousands of years by the action of running water
dissolving away the limestone.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Frank Kimbler is a geologist and associate professor of Earth
Science at New Mexico Military Institute. He lived in Arizona
from the late eighties until two thousand and nine, working
as an engineer for the state Department of Minds and
Mineral Resources. He explored the caves near the Forerunners spot
in the nineties. The first thing he tells me is that.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
The caving community is very, very secretive, and they won't
tell you anything because people trash things out really bad
and they leave cans. There's this caving thing that says,
leave nothing behind and kill nothing but time, and take
nothing but pictures.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Frank has been in two of the four caves near
the four Runner spot, forty one Club and Pishie Burrow,
where in nineteen ninety two he almost died on the
way out.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
I was really tired. My arms were cramping up, and
I miscalculated the stride length. You need to have enough
space to reach up and grab the top ledge to
pull yourself out. And what happened was on the way
out with my arms cramping up and I was dead tired.
I get to the top and I was about a
foot short. I'm going, oh my god, I messed up
(20:43):
the stride length. So I'm dangling in there and I'm going,
all right, I'm too tired to go back down and
redo and then come back up. So I was the
last person out and my friend Wayne was at the
very top waiting for me, and I tried to reach
him and I couldn't reach. He reached down and I
stretched with all my might. He caught my fingertips and
(21:06):
literally pulled me out. I was scared to death. I
thought it was going to die dangling in Pisheborough Cave.
But he pulled me out, and when I got to
the top, I just laid down. I says, thank you, Wayne,
this is the second time you've saved my life. He says,
don't worry about It's what friends are for.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Pcburrow was much harder to access than other caves like
forty one Club or Redman. First, you had to descend
into a deep sinkhole.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
You would absolutely have to repel to get down into Picyboro.
No other way to get in there, and that's about
forty to sixty feet to get to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
In nineteen ninety two, right after Frank's near death experience,
the Picheboro sinkhole collapsed. Now there's only one way in.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
The flat metal plate goes in through what's called the
filopium tubes, aptly named I wouldn't be able to fit
through it. You probably would because you look like you're
a pretty slender dude, So fillopium tubes is horrible to
get through with fancy names like Restricter one and Restrict two.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And you're telling me that it's so tight that. I mean,
I'm five eight hundred and thirty five pounds, so I
could probably do it, but you're not. You could do it,
You're not that big of a guy, but it's tight
enough that you don't think you would be able to
get in there.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
I know when I was younger, I weighed one sixty
five and I could have done it. It would have
been a little bit of a stretch, but I was
used to that. But now that I'm one hundred and
eighty nine pounds, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
By chance, Frank is within one pound of Robert Fisher's
weight one hundred and ninety pounds when he disappeared.
Speaker 7 (22:32):
I think the chubb around I think that the good
life from my wife's cooking, I would have been stopped
at probably Restrict one because they have different diameters on them.
That's the reason why they named them Restrict one and
Restrictor two, and hence the name. I mean fallopium tubes
that describes all tight.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
That is, if I went in there, am I just
in an extraordinarily claustrophobic tube for a long period of
time until it open.
Speaker 7 (22:56):
It would be you would be. That's a guarantee. And
I've been in tight places like that before. You would
have been probably more than one hundred feet of ultra
tighte we're talking about. Got to have your hands directly
in front of you, not by your sides, and you've
got to push with your feet and pull with your
hands to get through it. No way to turn around,
no way to do anything. You can't back out. You
(23:18):
just once you get started, you got to keep going.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
When I spoke to a coworker of Robert Fishers from
the early nineties, she was the first person to confirm
to me that he had been in at least one
cave in that area, and she did not remember the
name of the cave, but what she said is that
they went biking with some coworkers and that Fisher and
some of his coworkers went into a cave and then
came out another entrance. As far as I could tell,
(23:42):
the only one in that area that fits that description
is PC Burrow. Are there any other caves in that
area that you know of that you can enter one way?
And exit another.
Speaker 7 (23:51):
I gotta think about this. You can't do it in
forty one Club, as far as I can remember PC
Burrow before the sinkle entrance collapse. If you knew the
way around inside that cave and knew it well, yes,
you could go in one side and come out the other,
although coming out the filopium tubes would be an absolute bitch.
(24:12):
Going in that way as an absolute bitch. Forty one
Club I heard somebody say something that there was another
inference to that. I don't know, and I don't remember,
but I do know that pshew Borrow had two ways
in and two ways out at one time. Now I
think it only has one unless somebody made some discoveries
since I was there.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I haven't been able to determine which cave Robert Ashley
and their coworkers entered in the nineties p she Burro
seems unlikely they would have had to either repel down
into a sinkhole or crawl through fillopian tubes, neither matches
Ashley's account, but I'm unaware of any other cave in
the area through which Fisher could enter one way and
exit another. Frank and I are kindred spirits adventurous souls.
(24:54):
I suspect you are too past caves. We chat about
lost minds and treasures and UFOs. Sorry UAPs. I once
hunted for Forest Fenn's treasure. So did Frank. Fenn was
an art dealer who hit a million dollar treasure chest
somewhere in the Mountain West. He wrote a poem with
nine clues to find it. This is what I wanted
(25:15):
to do for Missing Season two, spend my days in
the wilderness treasure hunting. Instead, someone found the chest, Fenn died,
and I ended up in New York at the height
of COVID, sifting through nine to eleven photos. Frank tells
me intriguing stories, including one about people he knows who
found treasure in the Oregon Mountains organ in New Mexico.
Speaker 7 (25:37):
They found a partially concealed mine in the Oregon Mountains,
and once they unsealed it and went back into the
back end of it, there was a stacked up silver
bars and Spanish armor in the back.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Frank zoom background is the site where a UFO allegedly
crashed near Roswell in nineteen forty seven. Did you ever
find any piece of it?
Speaker 7 (25:57):
I have got probably thirty or four fragments of metal
that have come from out there. Some of it's been
analyzed and it comes back as being anomalous.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I tell Frank that these shows missing in Alaska, a
nine to eleven in Arizona are Gothic treasure hunts. A
plane carrying two congressmen, a doctor who vanished in New
York the night before nine to eleven, A familicidal fugitive.
What drives Frank, what drives.
Speaker 7 (26:22):
Me, It's that innate curiosity that is in almost everybody.
What's at the top of the mountain. Well, we climb
Everest because we want to go to the top of it.
We explore space, We go to the moon. It's in
our nature to look for things. It's just there to.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Explore, including caves, which feel like a final refuge from
our digital age voids. To explore blank space is to
give us some meaning, any meaning, in a day and
age where it feels like there isn't a lot of
exploration to do. It's something that is a little bit
of a pioneer spirit, because even when we're saturated with
(27:00):
satellites and cameras and drones and maps and tobo this
and Tobo that, and history and photos. There are caves
that are undiscovered, and it's got to be absolutely exhilarating
to discover something new that you're either the first person
or the first person in a very long time to
go into.
Speaker 7 (27:16):
There are undiscovered caves. There are many things that need
to be explored. The exploration days are not over yet.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
As our interview winds down, Frank hou's a surprise. He
tells me about another cave near the fore Runner spot
number five Columbine. I get excited, but.
Speaker 7 (27:33):
It's full of water. There's no way that you could
even camp out in that thing. We were water up
to our armpits and that thing. I kept thinking we
were going to drown, but no, and it was ice cold.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Not habitable, a dead end. If you like this show,
please download our first two seasons, Missing in Alaska and
Missing on nine to eleven. For updates, visit Neon thirty
three dot com or follow me on Twitter at John
(28:03):
waalzac Jo n Wa l Czak. Thanks for listening. My
(28:24):
initial plan is to search the Fisher caves using autonomous
aerial drones. Then I have trouble finding the caves. I
don't want to damage them. There are legal issues that
technology isn't there yet, and regardless, it's expensive, and we are,
as I've said before, but a humble podcast. There are
so many hurdles.
Speaker 9 (28:42):
It's dog dusty, narrow, all kinds of geometry, and you
have to figure out where do I go, how do
I stay safe?
Speaker 6 (28:50):
And do all of this with all.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
The human Sebastian Chaer is an associate professor at Carnegie
Mellon University's Robotics Institute. He was part of a team
that participated in something called the DARPAT Subterranean Challenge, sponsored
by the US Defense Department.
Speaker 9 (29:04):
The goal was to explore underground spaces and find objects
in those spaces, such as people and so. The ideas
that before you send any first responders in, can you
see what you have ahead of you in a safe way.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
One day in the near future, police might unleash a
swarm of drones into a cave to search for a
fugitive or a missing splunker. Yet for now, nothing beats
in old fashioned boots on the ground approach. So let
me reintroduce you to.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Hi, Dave Decker.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I'm the owner and principal geologist at Southwest Geophysical Consulting
out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And Hi.
Speaker 10 (29:39):
My name is ger Jorgensen Olage. I've been working for
a Southwest Geophysical since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
We hired Dave and Garrett to help us search two caves,
Apex and Redman. Part of this is just for fun.
What an absurd job I have. I tell friends, I'll
be off the grid in Arizona in a cave hunting
for the bones of a killer. However, it is also
a legitimate search for clues. We're hunting for guns, bullets, tobacco, tins, keys.
(30:06):
Our plan is not only to search the caves, but
also to map them with widar, scan for other caves
using a drone and metal detect around the fore Runners spot.
So in November twenty twenty three, I fly back to Phoenix,
as do the Polls, Paul Deckett, our executive producer, and
Paul Kemberlin, our fan turned researcher. The Pauls and I
meet Dave and Garrett at the fore Runner spot. I
(30:28):
tell Dave he looks like Gary Sinise. He seems mildly offended,
which I don't get. The next day he explains he
thought I was talking about Gary Busey. This is our plan.
Day one explore and map APEX and Redman. Day two
metal detect and fly the drone. To start, we get
(30:51):
a safety briefing.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Okay, so always want a good quality helmet with the
chin strap. Don't wear a construction helmet with rubber band.
Not going to work if a rock falls off the
ceiling and hit your head because the first rock's going
to knock the helmet off, the second rock's going to
crush your skull once you're around the cave entrance. The
cave entrance tends to be the location where most rock
fall actually does occur, so try to be pretty careful
when you're at the cave entrance. That's also where most
(31:14):
critters hang out, so snakes, coyotes, rentail, cats, raccoons, any
number of wild animals use cave entrances and the first
inner room of a cave as shelter, so that's where
you're most likely going to run into them. So just
be aware of that and kind of be expecting it,
so when the raccoon comes flying out at you or
the owl comes flying out at you, you don't get startled,
step backwards and.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Fall off a cliff.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
One time in a cave entrance. Garrett came face to
face with a bear.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Start to crawl in.
Speaker 10 (31:40):
Look up and it's about as close as we are.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
Just looking at me there.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
I'm like, oh shit.
Speaker 10 (31:45):
I start to back out and then I stand up
and I hear it bolt, so I think, a fuck,
it's coming. It's charging me. So it's the cave entrances
backed up against the cliff face. I don't remember climbing
into about twelve feet high. I just remember the next
thing I was up on top of it, scaled the rock,
and then from there I did jog to my group.
At that point, I'm like, Okay, it probably can't get
to me up that sheer rock.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It might get tight in the cave. Dave says, it
feels like mother's giving you a hug.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
If you're into that kind of thing. I am like it.
I like the feeling of being in a rock chamber.
It's surrounded by rock on all sides. But some people
don't like that and they start to panic.
Speaker 10 (32:19):
Remain calm in case someone does get injured. The first
risk is going to be hypothermia. Not moving around forty
degree environment becomes very cold, very fast.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
It's important to bring.
Speaker 10 (32:30):
Extra water, extra food, extra light, redundancy. It's just good
to emphasize how isolated the environment is. It may seem obvious,
but we're becoming more dependent on these technologies that just
don't work underground. No Google maps, no satellite, no GPS,
no radio, no cell signal. What you have on your
(32:50):
person and what your teammates have is all you got
down there, and there's no way to get in contact
with the surface.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Treat critters, snakes, spiders, bats respectfully. It's their home. Don't
break off decorations, stalactites and stalagmites. Be careful with any
sign of human activity.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
The footprints that you see in there could be one
thousand years old. The charcoal that you see along the
path might actually be from the Native Americans that were
exploring the cave.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And with that, the descent we climb down in the
sink to the entrance into Apex, a small hole in
the ground, a jagged cavity in the earth that even
light struggles to enter.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
There's blood on the rock in here.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
O human, No, No, I'm sure it's just a gameing
like something killed something and.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Dragged in there.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Oh okay, so scary, but it does go.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
So it goes into a small room right over here.
It's big enough to turn around in.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
Can tell how fresh the blood is?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
No, I can't tell it.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
To a good start.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Garrett goes first, then Paul Gemberline, then me. I slither forward,
constricted dirt below rock above. It's very, very tight. This
is the first cave I've ever been in. Had to
crawl on our stomachs just to get into the entrance.
And then you drop down, and it's very tight. The
front room is barely big enough for two people. Paul
(34:12):
Gemperline and I crouched down. Garrett is ahead somewhere, scoping
a route. To go any further, I have to drop
into a cramped hole, crawl forward, double back, drop down again.
And this is just the start. Remember police thought this
cave was so tight and treacherous they didn't even attempt
to enter it. We've already made it further than the
SWAT team. I debate moving on. I want to push myself.
(34:36):
I want color for the show, but I don't want
to navigate the winding, hermetic belly of this rock beast.
I feel suffocated only ten feet in. I choose not
to proceed. Unlike me, Paul Gemperline isn't phased. Another day,
another cave. I give him my recorder.
Speaker 11 (34:53):
Yeah, I'm not gonna mess with the settings. And I
clicked it and it's got a red light and it's recording.
I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 6 (34:56):
So, and you need to just shum in your pocket
or whatever. Yeah, I'll try to not destroy it.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I exit. Dave enters, Hey, Paul, I'm coming in right
by it, all right, Paul Deckt and I stand in
the sink.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Dave made off in comment.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
He said, unless Fisher was an experienced cave or I
doubt he would have gone in here.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
Yeah, it's extremely tight.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
So yes, he is known to have gone into caves occasionally,
but he definitely wasn't a professional. So we are with
two people who do this professionally and somebody who's done
it extensively recreationally. Paul and I have never been in
a cave before. I've now been in a cave about
ten feet in. This is extremely tight. The idea that
you would crawl in here with like a big packful
(35:35):
of supplies and survive for weeks in a labyrinth of tunnels,
I mean maybe somewhere else, but the only reason you
would crawl into this cave is either to explore it
for fun or to die, not to hide out here.
It's very clausophobic. It's very tight. I doubt he was
ever in it before. It's not one that people really
know widely. My nerves are a little up, even from
crawling on my stomach through the entrance. The entrance itself,
(35:58):
that's the first cave I've ever been in a my
life is very tight. Think, even if you want to
die by suicide, you're not gonna be like I want
to call into this miserably claustrophobic little cave. We're in
a beautiful forest, Paw and I are down in the sink,
but you look up top and it's very pretty, and
we're looking up at the trees and it's still sunny,
and it's burning like the entrance of a dark little hole.
Here for a while, we hear voices grow weaker than vanish.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
Hey, Garrett, can you hear me? Yeah, I'm coming through
this triangle part?
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Did you do you do? Headfirst? Okay?
Speaker 11 (36:28):
This is like a hands and knees crawl.
Speaker 12 (36:32):
Uh, I'm talking into the just to myself here.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Sorry.
Speaker 11 (36:36):
It's like a long tunnel, kind of like a you know,
almost like what a drug gunner would use or something
like a drug grounder tunnel.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Oh, this is.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
It's cool.
Speaker 7 (36:49):
Oh yeah that opened up.
Speaker 11 (36:53):
Yeah you do you have a camera on you on
my phone.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (36:59):
We had a tunnel that was pretty long, like I
don't know fifty how long you think that tunnel was, Garrett,
I'm bad at that one hundred and fifty two hundred
feet tunnel. And now it has opened up to a
room that you could fit a small like a like
(37:20):
a business jet. You could fit a business jet in
here if you could get it down here. It's not flat,
but uh, it's you know, very rocky, and there's some
kind of like rock in the center of it. But
it is big and open for sure. You just walk
this kind of ridge here. Yeah, okay, does look pretty vertical.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 12 (37:39):
Yeah, that goes down forty fifty feet or something.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Very Now Dave has to turn around.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, so I think just as bad as far as
I'm gonna go. My shoulders are starting to bug me.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Garrett and Paul press On.
Speaker 11 (37:51):
Hey, since it's the two of us, if somebody, well,
you know what to do, but if you fall, should
I what immediately?
Speaker 6 (37:57):
Go to the surface or.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Okay, forty five minutes later, Hello.
Speaker 11 (38:04):
Yep, we're coming out here in this a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Paul and Garrett made it one thousand feet into the
cave one hundred feet below the surface. Apex is much
bigger than we anticipated, including a chamber maybe.
Speaker 10 (38:16):
Thirty wide, twenty high and eighty long, so enough to
fit like a like a bus in but not not flat,
but a decent size. You know, it's a regularly shape,
so it's a little hard to give estimates, but.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Wow, that's huge compared to what you would imagine.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
Wow.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
And yeah, the registers in this room and it says welcome.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
The last time anyone signed the register a scrap of
paper coiled into a piece of PVC pipe was February eighth,
twenty twenty three, ten months earlier.
Speaker 10 (38:47):
By judging at the register people quit their times in
and sign up time when the register people would spend
anywhere from two to six hours beyond that point. So
I'm going to guess that's just the start of the cave.
It's pretty sizable.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Neither Garrett nor Paul saw any sign of fissure, or
anyone for that matter, save for the register. By now
it's late afternoon, the sun sinks, the forest dims. We
navigate south through the woods to Redmond Cave. At first
we can't find it. We reach a barbed wire fence,
(39:18):
a boundary between the Tanto National Forest and the Ford
Apache Indian Reservation, and turn around as twilight soaks the forest. Okay,
this looks a little bit, a little bit more inviting.
I spot something fifty feet from the cave. There's what
looks to be a headstone. It's very old, so I mean,
(39:41):
it's not modern, it's not recent. We try to read
its weathered letters. J Redman, I don't know who Jay
Redmond is, but this is his cave and this is
his grave. Something says not haunted like entering a little
cave near a grave in the woods. Cave near the grave, Okay,
(40:03):
John focus, lingering is a luxury we can't afford. It's
not the sun that matters. We are, after all, descending
into darkness with headlamps and flashlights. But we have call
out times. If our loved ones and producers don't hear
from us, they're supposed to call the police. So chop chop.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
It's five fifteen pm. The sun's going down and I'm
standing in the entrance of a cave.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Belt to crawl underground on my knees through a little
gate into the cave. Redman is immediately more inviting than Apex,
but I still have to slither in.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
Yeah, this is very different.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I squeeze through a metal gate.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
This is not bad.
Speaker 11 (40:49):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 12 (40:49):
Actually it has an opening at the top.
Speaker 7 (40:51):
See, so.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Paul, it's up to you.
Speaker 6 (40:58):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Don't feel obligated. Okay, well it's it's not too bad.
I'm okay with it. But it's a little tight. You'll
have to get on your stomach. It's not nearly as
bad as the other one though, and then it's walking
past that, so it's pretty easy.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Over here.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
Wow, this is so cool.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Redman opens up into walkable tunnels maybe seven feet tall,
four feet wide.
Speaker 6 (41:19):
Okay, this is I feel better. This is cozy, all right.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
So the reason I'm stopped here, and what I want
to show you guys is you had asked me a
questions on how caves form, and this particular cave is
actually a really good example. So look in the ceiling
right here. You see this crack yep, you'll see that
it goes all the way down.
Speaker 6 (41:37):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
So that was the original crack that this cave formed along,
So water was seeping through here, so it actually started
to dissolve the rock at this location.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Onward this spider.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
There's some crickets, right, Okay.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
So there's spiders.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I signed the register again. Garrett is ahead of us.
He finds the sump, the flooded passage at the back
of the cave. Only problem, it's down a forty foot drop. Garrett,
you know that somebody died in the sump.
Speaker 6 (42:03):
Yeah, somebody drowned in the sump. Yeah, in two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
One, four hundred feet in. We pause briefly.
Speaker 12 (42:11):
Look like a cozy place to hide out as a fugitive.
Speaker 6 (42:14):
Honestly, yes, I like this cave way more than the
other one.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Sadly, though, this is the end. For us to proceed,
we'd need climbing gear and more experience time to go.
On the way out, Dave points.
Speaker 6 (42:29):
To that Scott. Okay, so this is probably one of
the roosts. Okay, I'm calling out.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
We exit into night, a black forest, hike tower cars,
drive to Paysin in our west, check into hotels, grab dinner.
The next morning we return back to the woods. It's
sunny and cool. We've been sent good weather. Praise be.
Garrett shows us the light our scan he took of
Redman last night. After we exited. He scurried around like
(43:01):
a hobbit, crouched over with fancy equipment, building a three
D model. It's colorful and fascinating.
Speaker 10 (43:07):
Here's that final bend that it does, ninety degrees. And
then we stopped up here where it started dropping down
into the lower level, pointed it over it so you
can see the floor of that, and then from there
the sump would be like right here, it takes another
ninety degree bend.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Today is all about technology. We want to use a
drone mounted thermal camera to scan for hidden caves in
cold weather. Cave entrances vent insulated air to the surface,
contrasting visually on screens with the land around them. Sadly,
though it's too warm, we're limited to an eye's only search.
(43:45):
As Garrett pilot's the drone. We're going to the four
runner spot with the metal detector and we're going to
work our way out and see what we find towards
the road and then also towards the cave. A metal
detector might seem basic, but I think it's the most
promising technology we have. To my knowledge, no one ever
metal detected the fore Runner spot. We could find keys,
or a pistol, or a pot of gold.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
How deep can it detect?
Speaker 4 (44:09):
This one? About eighteen inches?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
By golly, miss Molly, we got a hit.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
It was detecting my steel.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
To dude, we find any gold who lays ownership?
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Uh for service? It's like, I was like, man, this
is all over the place.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
We went like six inches and we're getting results.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Not keys. Got it?
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Bullet point two right where the driver's side door of
the fore Runner would have been.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
That's a fired bullet. It's hit something. It's mushroomed out.
Speaker 6 (44:56):
Wow, okay, it's very interesting for that to be right where.
Speaker 8 (45:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
He's like, hey, let's put it in the sun so
you can see it literally the.
Speaker 4 (45:05):
Place his foot would have.
Speaker 6 (45:06):
Stepped getting out of the car.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Don't get too excited.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
Looks like another bullet. Case it's exploded. Bbbbe another bullet.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Here, here a bullet. They're a bullet everywhere a bullet.
This is the forest, after all, this is America, after all. Basically,
what I've learned is all the forests land, and it's
just littered with bullets everywhere everywhere. Yeah, even areas that
look pristine, you know, looking at the surface, there's there's
not garbage or trash or litter here.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
It's pretty prisceine and clean.
Speaker 11 (45:42):
Well, it's not like this is random location, though we
do there is.
Speaker 12 (45:47):
There is a fire, There is a cave, especially the cave,
because there's like.
Speaker 6 (45:51):
A million other campsites.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
But well, I think the point is more like in
your proscene, natural area that looks clean right below the
surface is littered with bullets everywhere. We find so many
twenty two's.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
We're jaded at this point.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Bullets, bullets everywhere, and not a clue. Paul went from
like videotape this flags it's a clue to like gang.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Oh it sounds a little better, a little bigger, a
little better.
Speaker 6 (46:26):
Any idea I'm going to ask you every time, but
any idea?
Speaker 4 (46:29):
Eight?
Speaker 6 (46:30):
Really, So that's the gun that's missing.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
First someone was the twenty two, But the gun for
sure that we know was missing of his was a
thirty eight.
Speaker 11 (46:39):
Very it was like, no, got it, what do you
got here?
Speaker 4 (46:44):
Thirty eight?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
So it's been fired because it's not in its casing,
or it's been taken out of its casing.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
It did not hit anything before it fell to earth.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
So this was fired and just fell.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Yep, didn't hit anything any good shape.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I mean yeah, So that one you could get forensics
off of this, So that the rifle, the rifling inside
a barrel, you could get info off that one.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
We find it in the drywash, the seasonal creek bed,
not far from the fore runner spot. What are the
odds it's Robert Fisher's zero point zero zero one percent.
Regardless on the off chances of forensic value, I'm happy
to turn it over to law enforcement. Moving on, we
find rusty cans, barbed wire, a wrench only fifteen feet
(47:28):
from the fore runner spot, and of course bullets.
Speaker 12 (47:31):
Which is no longer of interest to me, and dead inside.
Speaker 11 (47:34):
And a bolt, which is somehow the more interesting thing
these days.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
A bolt bolt, an exhilarating bolt. Make it stop, please
no more. We were finding so many twenty two casings
and what was the other one, Dave seven casings that
we actually got tired of finding them with our limited
time and resources.
Speaker 6 (47:59):
Moved on.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
As Dave and the Pauls poke around, I wander out
far into the woods alone. This is the real joy,
to disconnect and adventure A soundtrack of wind Peace. A
few hours later, Dave and Garrett have to leave, but
first one final beep under a bush next to where
(48:23):
the Forerunner was parked, And now they really have to go.
They have to drive back to Albuquerque. Dave gives us
a crowbar. This is our final hope. So we clawed
the dirt maniacally with the crowbar and our bare hands.
Sorry about life, Dig dig dig, find nothing, continue diggig big.
A judgment called a splend to stop diggig.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
I'm burnout and exhausted. I just guess they have to
stop digging.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Next time. I'm missing in Arizona. It's interesting to think
that he could have another family. He absolutely could and
probably does. To be honest, you can reach us by
phone at one eight three three new tips that's one
eight three three six three nine eight four seven seven,
by email at tips at iHeartMedia dot com, tips at
(49:13):
iHeartMedia dot com, online at neon thirty three dot com,
or on Twitter at John wallzac j O n w A. L. Czak.
Paul Decan is our executive producer. Chris Brown is our
supervising producer, Hannah Rose Snyder is our producer. Paul Gemperlin
is our researcher, Ben Bowen is a consulting producer, and
(49:33):
I'm Your Host and executive producer John Waalzac Special thanks
to Wolfgamefink. Additional production support provided by Ben Hackett. Cover
art by Pam Peacock, Neon thirty three. Logo designed by
Derek Rudy. Our intro song is Utopia by ruby Cube.
Please download the first two seasons of our show, Missing
in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven, and if
(49:54):
you're so inclined, give us a five star rating. Missing
in Arizona is a co production of iHeartRadio and Neon
thirty three