EPISODE 7: ROAD TRIP

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:23):
The. Hi, I'm Jem.
And I'm Vic. And this is the criminal crack
episode 7. I don't.
Exciting, isn't it? It is episode. 7 was exciting
for our listeners too. Oh, me too, and we have been
remiss in our GES towards our listeners as we have not been

(00:46):
thanking them. We are very thankful for every
one of our listeners and I thinkwe're getting some regular
listeners now, which is. Definitely.
We're definitely getting some interactions, and I've had some
lovely messages as well actually, and I might share a
couple, but without naming names, you know, I don't want
to. Be embarrassed anyways, but.
No, we've had some lovely thingssaid and I'm really grateful.

(01:08):
Yeah, me too. Because this is just still brand
new to us, You know, this is just a thing that we decided to
do because we're into true crimeand it's nice that people are
enjoying it. It is.
It's very nice. We have had a few comments about
trying to keep our banter out with the story, which we do try
to do, but I sort of feel like if I've got a memory which lends

(01:29):
itself to something then it's OK.
Yeah, and we're still going to be us.
Otherwise you could just go and read it yourself, you know what
I mean? Definitely.
And the one thing I do have to say is I'm going to be trying
hard not to be such a potty mouth.
Model Ida. Bollocks I.
Can't believe you just did that.You went, you knew I was going
to say that I was going to be like this.

(01:52):
What have you been up to? I've been working lots.
I went paddle boarding again, which was.
Really. Oh, we.
Picked just the nicest day and we went to Burghead.
Yep, which for those of you not from up here, it's it's a
massive long sandy beach and. I'm waiting for her to try and
describe where it is because she's got no idea.

(02:12):
I'm just not gonna do that. But we've been out from there
before on a on a boat and went mackerel fishing and stuff like
that. And this time we just thought,
yeah, we'll take the paddle boards.
And the sun shone on us and it was so beautiful.
And there was a seal popped up and came paddle boarding with
us. So that was nice.
Oh, that's. Awesome.
But there was some plank with a what they called a jet ski.

(02:33):
Yeah, and it literally aimed forAlfie the Seal and yeah, idiots.
And today's episode is about howVictoria murdered Batman.
With a spoon. Oh, I will cut your heart up
with a spawn. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
Fantastic work, Fantastic I. Alan Rickman.

(02:54):
We love Alan Rickman. We do.
Rest in peace. Yeah, as I was saying that, I
knew he had passed, but I thought, what if he hasn't?
I just had that moment. He has.
He did. We lost he.
Was a fantastic actor. I what I love about him in Robin
Hood, Prince of Thieves is you can see that he's got a stage
pass. Past, past, past, past.

(03:15):
Yeah, his career was in stage initially.
And actually, his role as Hans Gruber, the villain in Die Hard,
that was his very first film. Did you know that?
That's nuts, isn't it? A lot of the big names didn't
start as well. And he wasn't even German, he
did an accent. Not that kind of accent.
Oh, I don't know what that was. Get into the chopper.

(03:35):
That's Austrian and I might be able to use that later.
Oh, so tell me, Gemma, are we ready for the crack?
Well, I was just going to say one more thing.
Go for it. We have Facebook, Tiktok and
Instagram. Now you can find us on the
Handle the Criminal crack and weare going to be we are we said
this before, but we are going tobe doing more with them.

(03:55):
I would just like to let everybody know that we have you
can find us on Amazon Music. You can find us on Spotify.
You can find us on Audible. I think you can probably find us
other places, but I need to double check.
Other places like in charity shops.
And shall we tell them what we're going to do regards to
charity shops? Yeah, let's do that.
We are going to set up a new Instagram just to go alongside

(04:18):
our other one. But it's only going to be for
Thrifty and you might see me. What's it called when you
upcycling? Yeah, upcycling.
Yeah, we followed the charity shop pages on Facebook.
Like the shit you find in charity shop?
Yeah. And the not so shit you find in.
Charity Things you find in Wolves.
Yeah. Oh, I don't follow that in
Wolves. Yeah, it's brilliant.

(04:39):
And things you find in unusual places.
Oh. Yeah, OK.
I did start a file on my my computer in my photography
files, and one of them is thingsI found in Theo's pockets
because I used to find the most random stuff in his trouser
pockets when he was younger. But anyway, yeah, so we're we're
gonna do this Instagram. Yeah, we were thinking show.

(05:00):
Us our show off, our things thatwe see, things that we buy,
things that we like, an upcycle and.
Just for no other reason than that's what we do.
And sometimes we mention it and put individual to it is.
Yeah. And if we find anything we think
somebody listening might like, they'll be the option for you to
say, oi, I want that. Go get it for me.

(05:21):
Please. Right, Gemma, what's the crack?
OK, so just a heads up, today's episode's going to be another
long run from me. And I think it's a case that
people might be really divided by.
I know initially I was, so therebe two camps that people might
fall into, but there's loads of information, hence the reason
it's so long and it can be confusing.

(05:43):
So I'm going to do it in parts like I did with the Ellen Harper
episode. Okay, And oh, I've already said
this. My public service announcement
is that I'm going to try not to be such a big potty mouth.
If it's in a quote I will use it, but if I think it's too
harsh in a quote I will say it ablanket out but you'll know that
I've blanked something horrifying out.

(06:03):
We should we should have a little Awuga or something every
time there's a swear that you ina blank out.
Noise. Ohh, so let's get going.
At its heart, this crime involves 2 friends who took a
road trip together, but only onelived to tell the tale.
David Coughlin and Rafi Kodikiam, aged 21 and 20

(06:24):
respectively, met in 1994 when they were dating women who were
best friends. I'm going to tell you about
David and Rafi individually shortly.
However, just now I will tell you that even though the men had
completely different personalities and attended
different universities, they still became close friends.
David was a student at the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst studying resource economics, while Rafi was doing

(06:48):
a degree in journalism at Northeastern University in
Boston. Now, these institutions are both
in Massachusetts, but the round trip from one to the other was
about 160 miles. Over the years, the boys seemed
to have made it work, and they did live closer to each other, I
think about 20 minutes away before they went on this road
trip. OK OK so Part 1 is me telling
you about who they are. Robert and Joyce Coughlin are

(07:12):
the proud parents of three children.
David Coughlin was born and thenraised alongside his siblings
Kathleen and Michael in the suburb of Wellesley in Boston,
MA. By the time the road trip was
planned, all the Coughlin children had flown the coop.
David chose to move to the town of Millis, Massachusetts around
14 miles away from his parents home.

(07:33):
Michael he was even closer. He had a place in a town called
Natick in Middlesex County, which is only about 6 1/2 miles
away from the family home, and Kathleen had married and started
building a family in Gainesville, VA, which was
nearly 8 hours away. However, by all accounts, the
family were incredibly close andbeing apart didn't seem to have
any effect on the bond the siblings had.

(07:54):
In fact, Michael and David spokeoften and part of the road trip
included visiting Kathleen. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In every source I could find, David was described as a really
positive person and left me witha picture in my mind that he was
an incredibly friendly guy with an easy smile.
Family said David loved to make people around and feel at ease
and would often do that in a jokey way.

(08:14):
Colleagues and friends describedhim as someone who at his heart
was an organised and resourcefulperson who enjoyed order,
especially in his work life. They shared that he enjoyed
numbers and data and they would playfully refer to him as quote
the systems guy, who never quit even when the going got tough.
Although saying that before heading off on the road trip,
David quit his job as a traffic policy analyst in the

(08:37):
selectmen's office in his hometown.
However, his resigning was not as it sounds.
Having completed his resource economics degree, his plan was
to attend Graduate School at theUniversity of California in
Santa Barbara because he wanted to gain a qualification in
environmental services. He sounds like a bit of a nerd.
He sounds like a nerd, but somebody who has the world in

(08:58):
mind. An adventure nerd.
I'm more like saving the world I.
Think oh, OK. Once that was completed, it was
his intention to return to the Selectmen's Office to become a
management Analyst. Now, just a wee FYI, before I
move on to Rafi, I'm going to explain the Selectman's office.
And I know I don't have to, but I feel compelled to make sure

(09:19):
that everything I'm saying is explained.
I don't know what it is so please do explain.
Well, you're going to love this.And I.
I'm going to caveat it by sayingthat if any of this is wrong,
please somebody let me know. I'm not going to be offended.
And I'll poke her in the eye foryou.
Not in the eye, in the arm. OK, Six states in America are
grouped together and they form the New England region.
They are Connecticut, Maine. New Hampshire, Rhode Island,

(09:42):
Vermont and Massachusetts. In each of these six states,
every town has a select board, which is essentially, I think,
like a town committee, and they are responsible for making the
decisions for the best of their own particular town.
And they report to a central NewEngland government.
They hold lots of meetings to discuss the good of the town,
and locals are always invited tojoin them and give their

(10:03):
opinion. Think of the scene in Jaws where
we meet Quint. OK.
When we were watching it the other day, remember I was on a
job. Don't do it, OK?
But remember I said, oh, this is, this will make sense soon,
OK? In Massachusetts, each town has
three selectmen in office who hold different responsibilities,
and they have staff for various departments below them.

(10:25):
And that's where David would fitin.
So Raffy, he was born in Buckingham Township, PA, And
though I know he had parents, I couldn't find much about his
family, so I have no idea what their names were or anything.
There's actually not too much about Raffy.
In contrast to David, who was considered the systems man, Rafi
was known as quote a poetic wanderer at heart.

(10:46):
Rafi idolised Jacques Kerouac, his works and the literary works
of other Beat Generation writers.
Now this is another case that during research I learned loads
about that I didn't know before.Because I like to deep dive and
to be able to tell you more about Rafi and his personality
and ambitions, I felt the need to go in and have a look at
Jacques and the Beat Generation.So here it is.

(11:07):
If you already know it, sorry, too bad, too sad.
John Louis Labre de Kerouac. Oh, Francais.
AKA Jacques Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, MA and went on
to become one of the most famousnovelists and poets in America,
which is actually incredible when you learn that for the

(11:28):
first six years of his life he lived in a French only speaking
house. So go him whoop.
In the 1940s he became close friends with writers William S
Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. The three men developed a really
close bond over mutual opinions that they had regarding topics
that they disagreed with, such as sexual repression, economic

(11:48):
materialism and militarism, which I think I would get one of
these guys too. Probably.
I think you'd probably have a lot to tell them.
What would I tell them? Do My Little Ponies come into
this? You would get on with them.
I don't know what she's trying to infer.
Each of these people published political writings sharing their
views, and from here they gainedquite the following.

(12:09):
This then turned into the Beat Generation, which was a group of
people who shared the same viewsand would write about it, spread
their opinions through essays, artwork and protestations, and
you might know them as Beatniks.Ah.
Yeah, it was one of those thingsthat I'd heard about, but I
didn't know what it was. Every day is a school day.
Oh. That's our news.

(12:32):
I've got no words today if they're not written on this bit
of paper. Words fail her.
See, I said that they would get on, but actually they she'd
she'd have just been shoved out of the clubhouse.
Why? Because your words were silent.
Oh, I wouldn't have been silent.I just wouldn't have been
talking. What they wanted to know.
No, you'd have gone off on a tangent.
Who me? So on the subject of cheese,

(12:55):
Jacques released his first book,a novel called The Town and the
City, in 1950, but it was his second book On the Road from
1957 that led to his fame. Though it's a novel, it was
based on the trip he took with friends across the United
States. Some of his friends who were big
names amongst the beatnik movement were depicted as
characters in the novel by Kerouac.

(13:15):
He also based the narrator of the trip, Sal Paradise, on
himself. So I think essentially he used
his novels to share the views that they had to get them to the
people, but dressed up as a story.
OK, clever, I was going to say. That's very clever.
Have you ever seen Jacques Kerouac?
I'm just trying to think of somebody that still does that
and there are people, but I, I can't think of anyone off the

(13:37):
top of my head at the moment. He.
Was a very good looking man. Who was Jacques?
We will have to put an image up for you.
We shall. I think I might go and read the
book actually. I just want to see what Gemma's
idea of a good looking man is. Think I'll in car next with
getting back to Raffi. It's funny because I actually

(13:58):
got Alan Sugar in my head, and that's no better.
Ohh. Mix him with Alan Curry.
Sorry. Alan Curry.
Alan Sugar. Yeah, yeah.
They're not sponsoring us. Getting back to Rafi, I think
that learning about Jack gives an insight on what Rafi was like
at the time. And honestly, he, he sounds like
the type of guy I would have goton with the two.
I think I would get on with all of them.

(14:19):
I think it was his ambition to follow in the footsteps of Jack
by taking these Rd trips. He sounds like a romantic.
He does, but an opinionated 1. Yeah, but I think maybe his
opinion like a feisty 10. You see, I think he'd be more
John Lennonish, who did end up like.
These in my views and it's OK ifyou don't agree with me men,
but. They're right.

(14:40):
While studying, Raffy worked as an editorial assistant for the
Boston Globe. But as soon as he graduated in
1997, he quit and took off on the road in his Jeep for 10
weeks. He hit the road much like his
idol and journaled his travels to California and back.
It was this journal that he successfully approached his
former employer, the Boston Globe, to seek publishing.

(15:00):
It was in his travelogue, he wasquoted as saying quote, my fear
was this, that the road wouldn'tbe everything Jacques Kerouac
had promised it would be. Hit the road, Jack, Don't come
back no more. Oh, do you think that's about
him? It could be, I don't know
because I don't know this story,but could be.
No, not Rafi. Jacques Kerouac.
Yeah, but that wouldn't be to dowith this story.

(15:21):
Why? It'd just be Jacques being on
the road, because that's what hedid.
It's got nothing to do with Rafiand David.
That's true. OK, I've not heard of Jacques
Kerouac before. This is what I mean, so I
wouldn't know. I just that song popped into my
head. I'm pretty sure that it was
everything he hoped it was, and he found that this was the life
he craved. He was thrilled to find out that
sleeping under the stars was waymore his vibe than ever going to

(15:42):
a motel. However, despite all this, he
wasn't stupid. I knew that to fund the
lifestyle he loved, he had to work.
So when he came back to Boston, he took on an entry level
position at a mutual funds company which had him
essentially writing customer care letters.
Obviously, this didn't feed his soul.
Who's would it, Phil apologies. So when he and David decided to
hit the road and 99, he was thrilled and left the role

(16:04):
without thinking twice. Despite differences in their
personalities, the pair had bonded over the years on their
hobbies such as socialising, hitting bars, playing pool as
well as outdoor pursuits. They enjoyed skiing, biking,
hiking, snowboarding and of course, taking Rd trips
together. Part 2 The trip begins.
The 1999 trip was, by my estimation, going to be a big

(16:27):
one in the sense that the plan covered a lot of miles.
The pair were taking David's 1994 Mazda and over the course
of around 10 days they were going to be visiting family,
crossing a few states from Boston to California so that
David was in place to start at Graduate School.
When it was all over. The trip began on Friday the
30th of July when they left Boston with a car full to the

(16:49):
brim of all their gear, including Diaries.
We both have brought with them to journal everything from the
own unique perspectives. We know this was common for Rafi
as travel journaling was his career goal, but prior to
leaving, David was gifted an inscribed spiral notebook by his
then girlfriend, Sonnet Frost. Wow.
And it read, while you're away from me, you'll be in God's

(17:11):
hands. Why do I feel like that's going
to have a much more sinister andominous like meaning by the end
of this? I've got no idea.
Is it because I'm wearing the scream mask while I say it?
I just think you have this way of introducing these characters
and stories like la, la, la, andI forget that it's a true crime
podcast. And then I go, oh, what's gonna

(17:33):
happen? Let's get it.
Sorry, God, sorry, sorry. I love that they're journaling,
though. I love that.
Yeah, and it becomes a really big part of this later on.
From Wellesley they made their way 302 miles southwest from
Massachusetts through Connecticut, followed by New
York, ending in Doylestown, PA, where they spent some quality

(17:56):
time with Raffy's parents, who again I have no more information
on. They then hit the road again to
meet with family. Now I don't know how long this
leg of the journey took them because even although I've
highlighted it in my notes, I forgot to put how many hours and
how many miles it takes, but it was quite far.
So they went from Doylestown, PAto Gainesville, VA, and the

(18:19):
purpose of this was to meet withDavid's sister Kathleen and her
family, according to Kathleen. So we know that that's 8 hours
away because you said. That Oh yeah.
Well done. Well, Dan, well, wait a minute.
Yeah. So, yeah.
According to Kathleen, during their stay, David and Rafi were
their normal, happy selves. She saw no friction at all.
In fact, she saw the opposite. She saw two friends who were

(18:40):
enjoying their time together, laughing and sharing in jokes
with each other, including when the pair joined Kathleen and her
family on a trip to Arlington National Cemetery, which is
located outside Washington, DC Just to say that's my bad
writing. They weren't laughing and making
jokes in a cemetery, just that they were just normal.
Well, how she'd seen them being 100 times before.

(19:01):
Is there something about this cemetery?
Because that's an unusual day trip, isn't it?
Family to go to a cemetery unless they have?
Well, I couldn't find anything else about it, but I do wonder
if they were visiting a relativeor.
It could be like, you know, we have a lot of Commonwealth war.
Yeah, lots of people go to tripsto cemeteries to to see things
about the war heroes. Yeah, they do.

(19:22):
So it could could be something like that as well.
It could, I'm, I can't answer the question because I'm not
sure, but yeah, that's a good, good thought.
They ended their stay with goodbyes, hugs and promises of
talk to you soon. The young men jumped into
David's car and set off on what should have been the penultimate
leg of their vacation. This was set to be the longest
part and I'm not sure how long it actually took them, but

(19:44):
according to good old Google Maps, which obviously don't
include pea food and sleep breaks, the trip from
Doylestown, PA that's not where they were.
Their trip from Virginia, Virginia should have taken
around 29 hours as it covers a whopping 1942.2 miles.
This, I think, makes you realisehow close they must have been to

(20:06):
do a journey that long in a car.Yeah, and also just the vastness
of the USA. Oh, I know in the amount of
states. So they drove from Pennsylvania,
then through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma,
Texas, and then they arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park
late in the afternoon on Wednesday the 4th of August

(20:27):
1999, which is in New Mexico. So it was quite the.
Distance. Yeah, I suppose with the right
person that could be really goodfun.
Yeah, but with the wrong person,that would not be that.
It would be spicy. It would be spicy, very spicy.
So we're now in Part 3, CarlsbadCaverns National Park.
And in case you can't, haven't realised, I struggle to say all

(20:49):
these words together. And it gets worse.
The Carlsbad Cavern National Park can be found in
southeastern New Mexico near to the Texas border in the Chiwawan
Desert, around 20 miles from thecity of Carlsbad, which I find
interesting because Carlsbad is known as a beach city, but it's
so close to the desert. Carlsbad and the park seemed to
have been named after one of the300 million limestone caves in

(21:13):
the park, the Carlsbad cavern. You would.
Love service 300 million caves. Yep, it's a cave name.
You'd never see me again. I think we probably a lot of
people wouldn't be seeing again going in there.
And while these caves were actually formed, they were a
fossil reef that were created byan inland sea around 265,000,000

(21:34):
years ago. Hi wild is that I've been online
looking at pictures of it and the caves are so beautiful.
I want to go on a fossil hunt. Your dad's in the living room.
Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't personally go in them
because caves give me the heebiejeebies.
They are incredible. There's no sharks in caves.
You can go into a cave, you're fine.
So yeah, I do get the heebie jeebies, but I get why people

(21:55):
would travel thousands of miles to go and experience them even
if you went once. Caves are arguably the main
reason people visit this park, but the entire place is a
wonderful, beautiful natural hotspot that I can imagine being
blown away by it. Although it does feature
elevators which are like in the side of the the Canyon.

(22:17):
So if you can't be bothered hiking all the way down, you can
go in an elevator. And that I don't like that.
I don't know if they're glass elevators.
I don't want to be pinged into the sky like Charlie Bucket.
See, I, I quite like that because I'm wondering at the
moment what they've done at my beach that I go to my secret
beach. They are filming The Odyssey.
So Christopher Nolan, loads of Hollywooders, they're all around

(22:39):
at the moment around this area and my secret beach that I go
there to read, actually, I love it because it's hard to get to,
so you don't get many people on it.
And I'm wondering how are they doing that with all these people
going up and down the mountains,the cliffside?
They must have put in steps or some kind of zip, temporary
elevator, a big whooshy slide maybe.

(23:00):
Or a wishy slide. You could ask them to leave it.
Yeah, exactly. But so I kind of like the idea
of it makes it more accessible to more people.
But at the same time, it's quitenice when things aren't
accessible to a lot of people because they're and it remains
more special, so there. For those who enjoy being in
nature, hiking, walking, campingand even kayaking in the caves,

(23:21):
it offers a mixture of both developed and undeveloped
pathways and trails. There are walks at different
heights, different lengths, there's walks for all levels of
ability, and it includes desert terrain that is challenging to
negotiate, but also areas which are easier to navigate and
barely well walked in contrast to those that are really remote
and rarely see people visiting. In short, it seems to have been

(23:44):
the perfect place for two best friends to spend time together
before arriving in Santa Barbarato rejoin their real life of
studying unemployment. Especially when they're both
sort of active outdoorsman. Definitely.
Yeah. Sounds great.
I want to see the pictures now though.
I'm fascinated, it sounds. You're going to love.
You will love. Them I'm going to have to put it
on my bucket list to go with my camera, aren't I?

(24:04):
Well, you see, you would go and do that.
I'm happy to see them online andI feel like I can take that off
my bucket list. On Wednesday the 4th of August
1999, David's Mazda pulled into the entrance of the park and
headed towards the car park of the visitor centre which was
located just off something called the Scenic Loop Drive.
Jumping out and stretching theirlegs, they went and applied for

(24:27):
a one night camping pass and told Rangers about how they
wanted to visit the famous Carlsberg, why can't I say this?
Carlsbad Cavern and they also asked about how to find
Rattlesnake Canyon Trail as theyhoped to camp and hike the
there. Why would you want to camp in
Rattlesnake Trail? Oh, wait till you hear about it.
Oh. No.
According to the National Park Service website, the Lower

(24:49):
Rattlesnake Canyon Trail is around 3 miles long and if hiked
in one go, should take around 3 hours.
Now that sounds quite a lot for three miles, but it's not just
about the distance. Walkers also face an elevation
drop of around 600 feet into thebase of the Canyon.
Wow, OK. And and obviously I would assume
it's hot there as well. Oh, so you've got to take into

(25:11):
account all all of that. We are going to get so it's.
Not just a three hour no no Mosey on down a street.
It is not. I wouldn't go down a street that
was 3 miles long. What not even if there was like
the best cheesecake at the end of it?
No. OK, too far.
I'm not going to put my cheesecake down the street then.
Just bring it to me and put it in my mouth.

(25:31):
In your face. Hole Rangers helped them out and
explained that the trail was just off that scenic loop drive
from a map which I will share. They basically had to drive
straight until the road took a hard right, but rather than
going right, they had to stop and park there just off the road
in like this little gravel car park area.
Then they would be able to follow a path that would veer

(25:52):
left. If they did that, for around
quarter of a mile they would find the start of the trail
marked with a big massive woodensign with the name painted on
it. Happy that they knew where they
were going, Raffy and David got back into the car and drove away
towards one of the remotest parts of the entire park.
This would be the last time thatboth men would be seen alive.

(26:13):
The Sunday morning after this, on the 8th of August 1999, a
volunteer for the National Park Service stumbled upon a car that
they recognised as belonging to the pair that had obtained A1
day permit at the visitor centre5 days earlier.
Oh, snap. This struck the volunteer as odd
because as far as they were aware the men had left the park

(26:36):
as no extension to the permit had been requested in the
meantime. Incredibly troubled by this, the
volunteer quickly found a Rangerand explained the situation.
Ranger Lance Matson was worried and stepped up straight away,
hurrying to the car park with the volunteer to observe the
situation for himself. Not only did he know for a fact

(26:57):
a new permit had it been purchased, but he was also
worried as during the time sincethe men had left the visitor
centre a lot of rain had fallen and he was conscious of the
possibility that flash flooding may have occurred in the Canyon.
So of course he initiated a fullon search.
Good, good, good boy. Well done, Lance.
Matson then made his way from the car park to the trail,

(27:19):
knowing that that's where the men had planned to go.
Finding a good vantage point high above the trail below, he
scanned and his anxiety regarding the men's fate
elevated immensely when he saw their tent located in the bed of
a stream at the very bottom of the Canyon.
This was a really bad omen. Given the previous bad weather,

(27:42):
it was not the place to set up camp.
Around 25 minutes after the search had begun, Mattson had
descended to 240 metres from thebase of the Canyon.
And what I'm about to share withyou next came from a criminal
complaint prepared by the Edie County Sheriff Office, which had
been filed initially in Carlsbad's Magistrate Court.

(28:05):
According to Mattson, when he made it to the stream bed, 100
metres or so from the trail, he found what looked like a body
lying on a bundle of rocks covered by a tarp.
I'm going to assume that. It took Matson a few deep
breaths before and with great trepidation, again an
assumption, lifting a corner of the tarp where he discovered the

(28:28):
body of Raffi Kadukium. Now I'm taking liberties with my
writing here. But possibly with his heart in
his throat, Matson wouldn't haverealised that Raffi was alive
until he heard him say, quote. Please tell me you have water.
Oh. Yes.
He's alive. The relief that must have gone

(28:49):
through the Ranger at that moment finding out he was alive.
I bet he jumped. You would, wouldn't you?
Handing over a bottle of water, Madsen.
Madsen advised the man. Just sip it, buddy.
Then Kodikian reached out for the water that Madsen proffered,
chugged it quickly, and then threw it all back up.
Waiting patiently, though concerned, Madsen asked the man

(29:12):
where his buddy was. Replaying the moment in the
complaint, Matson reported that quote.
The defendant then pointed over at a small mind and said over
there, then I killed him. I was going to say the
defendant, you just. I didn't say defendant.
You did. Oh, I didn't mean to, he.
Gave it away 2 seconds too early.

(29:34):
Sorry, I said at the bottom. I've got.
I want to take a moment here forVictoria, just to let it sink
in, because it's quite big. It's.
Quite big. Following Raffy Kodikian's cold
admission, Ranger Lance Matson walked over to the mind of dirt
covered in white rocks. Beside the mind, he noticed that
there were some large rocks which appeared to have been

(29:55):
placed in a pattern that read SOS.
Looking down at the piled up rocks sat atop the dirt, he
reached over and removed a Flat Rock, revealing a bump that he
thought could be a human nose. Replacing the rock, he listened
as Kudikian explained the eventsleading to the death of one of
his best friends. He put the rock back on his

(30:16):
nose. Probably because it's a crime
scene. Yeah, well, you've got to assume
we're now going into Part 4, which is what Raffy said.
Much of what you're about to hear comes from testimonies in
the Edie County Sheriff Office Complaint 16, specific entries
from the journals of both David Coughlin and Rafi Kodikiam, a

(30:39):
New Mexico law review written bySean Marie Boyne and Gary C
Mitchell, an article written by Paul Duggan for The Washington
Times and Cape Cod Times, and anarticle by Christopher Reid for
the Guardian. I'm going to share Rafi's
version of events, but to help you really understand the
situation these men were in, I'mgoing to include additional

(31:00):
information to help set the scene in your mind.
Yes, chaos at the moment. OK, so let's dig in.
When the Mazda peeled out of thevisitor centre on the previous
Wednesday, the men followed the route share by the Rangers to a
tee. Finding the gravel area to park
up, they manoeuvred the car intoa safe place and excitedly
hopped out. As the intensity of the New
Mexico summer sun beat down on their backs, they began

(31:23):
unloading their camping gear, ready to hit the trail.
They found the Rattlesnake Canyon Trail sign quickly and
started making their way down towhere they would set up their
tents. Now, when I originally heard
about this case, I thought that the pair were familiar with the
kind of hiking that they'd planned to do on this day and
would therefore have been adequately equipped.
However, it would appear that I was wrong, and although they did

(31:45):
love being outdoors, they perhaps weren't ready for the
dangers of the Canyon or or the New Mexico weather.
OK. A survival basic for the level
of heat that feels like you're being baked in.
A beautiful old Aga is water, and not just your recommended
daily average of two litres. I'm not sure how much the pair
set off with exactly, but they had consumed half of what they

(32:08):
had even before they arrived at where they planned to stay.
So remember they just arranged A1 night permit camp.
Now this was meant to be a shortstay, do the trail, sleep out in
the wild, check out the caverns and head back to the car.
So maybe they didn't realise that they had severely
underestimated what they would need.
Hungry and tired from the walk and the heat, the men then used

(32:30):
1/4 of the water they had left in the canteens, bottles,
whatever it was to cook some hotdogs.
No, I'll be honest. Come on fellas, you can eat them
cold. Exactly.
And you know me, I'm not a cook,but in this situation where
water's pretty much essential, Ithink that I even.
I would have thought it'd be better to cook the dogs over a

(32:51):
fire or even lay them out on a rock.
Hot dogs. Yeah, I love.
Little dogs, she weren't going to cook.
Them on no but. Chihuahuas under.
Fire. You could even leave them out in
the sun. It's 100°.
Yeah, Oh yeah, you could probably fry an egg on a rock.
Anyway, I'm I'm not saying that about the cooking to shame the
men, but it really does point out that they weren't campers.

(33:13):
And not not savvy with this kindof terrain.
No, and it would also become apparent that the pair did not
understand or were unaware of how to follow a trail system in
this kind of environment. Now it's not the kind of place
with a helpful big sign with colourful markers to show the
way. You know the type.
In Scotland, in areas with lots of lush nature trails to follow,
we tend to have big signs at thebeginning of like a walk network

(33:35):
showing us our options of paths to take each.
These paths have an estimated distance and time it should take
you, which helps you, you know, choose what matches your ability
and your time scale. The.
Mornings of midges and ticks. Yeah, and the good thing is each
of the paths will be highlightedin its own colour, and then you
just follow your colour, don't you?
Yeah, and it makes it pretty much impossible to get lost.

(33:57):
I've been lost in one, but I wasjust.
About, I was just about to say. But you know, you can get out
because you just have to look for colours.
So if you were on the green network and then you thought,
oh, here's yellow in a pinch, you'd follow yellow to get back
to. I can't really say anything
about getting lost because I am geographically challenged and I
get lost on the way to Gemma's house every single time.

(34:19):
Yep, the Rattlesnake Canyon Cavern Trail was not set up like
that. It was meant for experienced
trailers who were used to using the Cairn system, which is
essentially small piles of rocksleft to mark the way, which we
all also use in Scotland, But itis for people who are
experienced and know what they're doing.
Yeah. To give you a visual of the
environment the men were in, picture rambling plants,

(34:40):
pathways stomped down by previous visitors.
They sneaked all over the Canyon.
And on the topic of snakes, the trail has not been named,
ironically due to a lack of them.
Oh, no, no, no. I was waiting for the snakes.
Oh yeah, it's the home to various types of snakes, and the
sound could. One of them be a rattlesnake

(35:01):
perhaps. Well, the sound of warning
rattles is not unfamiliar, Victoria.
They aren't the only living creatures that can be
encountered. Rattlers share their home with a
diverse range of creatures, fromBobcats and foxes, coyotes and
Cougars, and even black bears and scorpions.
Oh wow. Black bears, the friendliest of

(35:24):
the bear family. Back to those slithery snakes,
though. The Creek the boys decided to
settle into was a particular hotspot for them, as they're
known for following its path to try and stay hydrated and cool.
Oh. No.
Which is clever, but yeah. Clever of the snakes, not clever
of the nerdy boys. The actual terrain in the Canyon

(35:46):
is typical for arid desert areas.
The plants that survive there are those that can withstand
dright and they're like, they'rethe tough boys of the plant.
Plant Family. That's what I was thinking, I
had genus in my head but family's better.
Yucca plants and cactuses grow there in amongst the abundance
of Mesquite, which is plentiful there.

(36:07):
Surfaces coated in this are not the easiest to traverse.
Now, Mesquite is basically a blanket term for small trees and
plants that grow despite a lack of or little water.
An interesting fact? They are part of the legume
family. There's one for your quiz
nights. Beans, legumes, beans, legumes.

(36:28):
By the time David and Raffy wokeon their first morning out in
the crippling heat, they completely run out of water.
It was at the point that they probably should have just
chopped this up to a failed tripand left.
They really underestimated it, didn't they?
They really, really did. And it's really sad.
Rafi's testimony when he finallyagreed to talk was that their
second and third days were almost exclusively spent trying

(36:51):
to find their way back up the Canyon to the entrance of the
car park they had put the masterin.
Oh. Oh, so they actually did try.
Yep. And with no water left and with
black bears stomping at like, stomping, chomping at their
heels and stuff. Oh.
They repeatedly hiked up the sides of the Canyon, hoping to
get high enough to see the path that they came down on the day
they arrived. However, time and time again

(37:12):
they failed as they were faced with quote craggy hillsides that
all looked the same, parched andtreeless.
Is nobody from the site accountable then?
If they've only got a one day pass?
Surely there should be a system whereby those guys haven't
checked out? Well, you don't have to check
out, you just drive away. That should be different is what
I'm saying. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(37:32):
Oh, I don't know. Maybe they do now.
Yeah, because if it's five days later.
Let's March forward. Let's March forward.
No matter what path they chose anyway, they just they couldn't
get out of there. And the despair that this would
have caused is illustrated in the following quote, which comes
from David Coughlans journal, which was allegedly written on
Saturday the 7th of August. And I'm going to purposely read

(37:54):
it to you verbatim. But there are curse words.
But I'd like to pay close attention to it because I'm
going to bring it up later and Idon't want you to get confused,
but I don't want you to comment on it right now.
OK, Quote. Nobody has come.
We were planning to die. We mustered all our strength.
We had no food or water. Nobody has come.
We went back to camp in hopes that Saint Nicholas would have

(38:17):
and shown up. Nobody had come, no water was
left. We thought we had found the way
and set off SAT, wasn't it? So before we go on, I'll
acknowledge that I know that that's written in past tense,
but we're just going to put a pin in it and move on, OK?
Because we're going to come back.
One of the most tragic parts of this case comes when you learn
that their base was really not that far from where they left

(38:39):
the car. Heartbreakingly, it has been
said that as they desperately try to literally crawl out of
the hole they were in, there wasa Cairn that they know what it
signified would have led them tosafety, and it's likely that
they passed this more than 50 times.
Oh no. Oh this is horrid.
I know it's not a nice one. Well, none of them are nice, but

(38:59):
it is horrible. Later, Rafi will say that he
thinks the reason they kept trying out the same routes was
because they were really suffering with the effects of
dehydration, which include becoming disorientated,
lethargy, and temporary temporarily being temporarily
cognitively impaired. Now dehydration plays a huge
part in this case, so I'm going to go over the symptoms and

(39:21):
stages of suffering from it later and I've got support and
evidence from case experts. I will also be sharing the
opinions of law enforcement and witnesses regarding the effects
they saw during this time. Now the reason I'm doing this is
I want to provide factual information and the opinions of
those who had the first hand information while staying as
unbiased as possible in my retelling because I want you

(39:42):
guys to make up your own minds what you think, which doesn't
make sense right now but it will.
After Mattson found Rafi and thebody of David, he gave the
latter a quick medical assessment.
You know like a once over because he was the 1st Ranger on
scene. Is he a first aider as well I'm
assuming? Basic In the complaint filed, he

(40:04):
reported that it was his opinionthat Rafi appeared to be fully
awake and was not displaying anysigns of disorientation.
He noted that the skin on his face was tented TENTED, which
relates to how the elasticity inthe skin bounces back after
being stretched, and this can show how dehydrated a person is.
So basically the quicker your skin bounces back after it's

(40:25):
been stretched, the more hydrated it is.
Yeah. So if you, you can do it on the
back of your. Head.
Yeah, you can push your finger down.
Well, you pinch and if it sort of takes a long time to go down,
then you're dehydrated. Yeah, or you can push your
finger down and you know how it goes white, depending on how
long that white takes to disappear.
We'll see how dehydrated you are.
Drink lots of water, people. Yeah, I was going to put that as

(40:47):
like, actually, guys, when you hear all the different symptoms
and how dehydration works, I canguarantee that a lot of people
think, oh, that's why I feel so crummy in an afternoon because
I've done it like I do it myself.
So he felt that although Raffy'sblood pressure registered is
normal, his pulse, which was 125beats per minute, was higher

(41:08):
than the average. And he wasn't happy with Raffy's
breathing because it was a little bit faster too.
So using his radio, he put a call out to other Park Rangers,
alerting them to the current situation and requesting further
medical assistance. During this time, Rafi was
talking to Mattson, telling him that during their time alone in
the Canyon, both he and David started to feel dehydration

(41:30):
taking hold and they really feltthat they were not going to make
it out of here alive. He followed this by saying that
David was feeling incredibly intense stomach pains that he
told him were, quote, agony. And he saw David doubled up in
pain because of the This led to Koduki and sharing quote.
My buddy asked me to do it. In the complaint, it said that
the man's then said that they quote were going to do it

(41:53):
together. Obviously at this point we know
that this plan never went ahead because David was dead and Rafi
was not. Ranger and Medic Mark Macchia
arrived shortly after this and hooked Kodikian up to an IV as a
precaution like a precaution measure before being transferred
to a hospital by military helicopter.
He was observed and given more tests there for around an hour

(42:14):
before being discharged to the custody of Edie County Sheriff
Mark A click after he was declared fit enough for
questioning. Reports show that tests had
found that Kodikian and was quote at least 20% dehydrated
when the Park Rangers find him. But this didn't make a
difference to Click on the otherinvestigators who believed there
was more to this story. Click also referred to as

(42:34):
Chunky. It says that in every article,
but nobody calls him that in thearticle.
I'm like, why are you out in himas somebody called Chunky?
He might be the like really slimand it's just one of those
because I used to know somebody that didn't have an arm, so he
was called Lefty and it was thatone that was missing.
So anyway, Click transported Kodikian to his station and

(42:55):
questioned him at length. However, this did not prove to
be fruitful as Kodikian refused to discuss anything that
happened after he and David arrived in the National Park.
Despite all this, Click charged Kodikian with an open count of
murder and moved to find witnesses and experts to support
this. He was held in gaol for around 2
weeks before being arraigned to secure his release.

(43:18):
His father stumped up $50,000 asa cash bond which allowed him
basically to get out of gaol andinitially he wasn't allowed to
leave New Mexico, but he was quickly given permission to go
and stay at his parents home to wait until he was required to
attend court. Can I just ask, so they charged
him, is the system different over there because they charged

(43:38):
him before they'd done all the investigation, whereas here they
have to do the investigation? Yeah, it's slightly different
there. No, it isn't.
It is the same there, but you'llfind out in a minute.
OK, so before Rafi left in the chopper.
Oh, I thought you were going to do the quote.
I was and then I was. Scared I.
Thought she was going to tell meoff for doing an accent.

(43:59):
Get do the job. Thank you very much.
Investigators and more Rangers arrived in the Canyon to begin
processing the scene and trying to figure out what on earth had
gone on. The entire time they were
working, David's body was in their presence.
Knowing this makes me really, really sad.
His poor family didn't get his body back for ages.
His body was not helicoptered from there until the following
Tuesday, the 11th of August, 1999.

(44:23):
Three days later, friends and family came together to play an
emotional tribute to David with a memorial service held at the
Saint James the Great Catholic Church.
Rafi, who was still being held in gaol at this point, obviously
wasn't in attendance and his name was only brought up once
when Michael, David's brother, said in a heartfelt speech that
quote, if David were here now, he would tell us all to pray for

(44:44):
Rafi. So I think they were a very
religious family and I think Rafi's family were the same.
Due to the circumstances and ongoing investigation, the
family were unable to finally lay him to rest until 11 AM on
Friday the 21st of August. His final goodbye took place in
the same venue as the memorial, the Saint James the Great

(45:04):
Catholic Church, which I assume is maybe their family church.
Yeah, they're obviously religious as well because of
what his sister put on the diaryfor him.
The. Was it his sister?
It was his girlfriend. Oh, sorry, his girlfriend put on
the journal for him, so yeah. Part 5 Investigation, Court
case, case. I want to take you through the
work investigators did and what they find to support charging

(45:25):
Codicum. Don't worry though, after this
we'll go into the court case which had to happen despite how
David died, which is why he got charged when he did, Right?
Okay. And the defence arguments
before. I'll go through the defence
arguments to you before I then end with the conclusion of the
case. At this point you may be
thinking that this was a mercy killing and at this time this

(45:45):
was the rhetoric that the newspapers were pushing, so the
public probably thought it too. I assumed it was kind of a a
suicide pact, but because of thecircumstances they were in, not
like they went down there expecting to do it, planning to
do it, but actually, how are we going to get out of this?
We're not I'll do you, I'll do myself sort of thing.
And that's, yeah, we'll go into that.
But the the reason that he had to be charged at the time was

(46:08):
because in New Mexico, physical mercy killings and assisted
suicide are illegal. So it doesn't matter what
happens next, Rafi is going to face some kind of court hearing.
Well, yeah, and obviously he didn't kill himself, which was
obviously supposedly the plan, so.
Yep. And that's the reason that I'm
covering the case today, which some people might wonder, this
isn't a this isn't true crime, but it is a crime.

(46:31):
Yeah, as is normal in cases of suspicious death, cases should
always be treated as homicide until evidence is found which
supports otherwise. This is why scenes have to be
preserved, witnesses spoken to, and all leads followed up on.
This is also why, as awful as itsounded, Davidde body wasn't
taken away for so long. Technically, this means that the

(46:52):
investigation began as soon as Matson arrived at the camp.
So for this reason and for continuity, because I want to
keep everything in chronologicalorder, we're going to start
there. Matson has explained that when
he arrived in the men's makeshift camp on Sunday the 8th
of August 99, straight away he noticed that the place was in a
real mess. He saw that there were three
empty water containers, which heestimated could have held about

(47:14):
2.8 litres of water each. If this was all they had at the
time, then he agreed that this wouldn't have been enough.
But he, Macia, Click and other officers also questioned if this
was a sign of a staged scene. Click in particular would later
theorise that maybe everything had been done to make a bigger
story for the book that Quedician hoped to write after

(47:35):
their trip, that they weren't prepared and had to be saved
from the elements by Rangers. Perhaps David succumbing was a
fatal floral or Quedicium let him die.
Mattson was also the 1st to see the rocks that had been hauled
over to create an SOS sign and those that had been placed on
top of Coughlin's body. These findings would become
integral to the investigation. Macchia, who was the 2nd to

(47:58):
arrive that day, was also confused by what he found.
When investigating, he noted that on arrival, one of the
first things he saw was part of the pair's tent hanging in a
tree. Later it was discovered that for
some reason the base, so like the floor of the tent, had been
cut out and bizarrely to this day it's never been found.
He and Matson were also puzzled when they came across food there

(48:20):
that had not been eaten. This included a huge chin of
beans that hadn't been open. Now surely before pure
desperation hit, the men would have eaten those.
Investigators also find a pocketknife which folded and had a
four inch blade and two burnout campfires located around six
metres apart. And I wonder if that was they
both had one next to them for sleeping.

(48:40):
According to Macchia, when the cold ash was sifted through, it
was possible that they find evidence of a sleeping bag in
it. Now we're going to address all
these findings soon because all of these things gave cause for
concern. But when investigators find the
journals of the two men and theywere taken into evidence to be
examined, it was clear almost immediately that they had hit
pay dirt. It turns out that while Rafi had

(49:02):
refused to talk to Clink in prison, these journals would do
the work for him. The night before the hikers were
discovered in the nearly 100° heat, Rafi had sat himself down
with both David's journal and his own.
He will later say that he believed at the time that this
would be the last time the bookswould ever be written in.
He continued to maintain that heand David were about to enter

(49:23):
into a murder suicide pact, A pact that he said David agreed
to. But when it came time to act, he
was too I'll to play a part in himself.
At this point, it's alleged thatbuzzards were watching them,
waiting for them to be too weak to fight them off.
In Quadican's own words in his journal, he wrote quote, we will
not let the buzzards get us, Godforgive us and quote, Dave has

(49:45):
asked that his remains be cremated, thrown over the edge
of the Grand Canyon. I leave the handling of my
remains to my family in Coughlin's book.
He left the following note for Sonic Frost, David's girlfriend
back home. Quote I am an utter agony.
I know you would understand. I love you so much.
I have barely eaten, drank sinceWed evening.

(50:05):
Nobody is coming to help. You will always be in my heart
and you will now always have an Angel standing by.
So Raffy wrote that for David. Now, anyone reading these would
probably feel conflicted about what happened.
But let me share one more quote from the journals just now that
may lead you to change your mind.
Because if, like me, at this stage, you're under the
impression that David Coughlin died in a way that was at

(50:27):
Kodikian's hand but was conducive to the effects he was
feeling from dehydration and done in a humane way, such as
being suffocated using blue cloth, I was going.
To say how did he die? You, like me, are going to be
really upset. Well.
Crickets chirked and the sun beat down.
And Rafi Kodikian was mere stepsaway from the dead body of his
friend David. He began to write along the top

(50:49):
of the page. He wrote Sunday and then quote,
I killed and buried my best friend today.
Dave had been in pain all night.At around 5 or 6 he turned to me
and begged that I put my knife through his chest.
I did a second time too. When he wouldn't die.
He still breathed and spoke, so I told him I was going to cover
his face. He said OK.
He struggled but died. I buried him with love.

(51:11):
God, his family, mine. Please forgive me.
You see, when Could Dickian was charged, it was for fatally
stabbing David Coughlin twice when confronted by his own
words. Kodikian's version of events was
that by day three, they had bothall but given up.
They were fatigued to the point of failure.
Energy was a thing in the past, and Kodikian said they had both
given up. But he had enough energy to ram

(51:33):
a knife into his chest twice. Yep, they spoke about both
taking their own lives, but David was in so much pain due to
dehydration and was so close to dying from it anyway, he went
ahead and put him out of his misery.
It was his testimony that when he tried to take his own life,
he couldn't because the blade ofthe knife was too blunt.
I know you're stunned by this, but we're going to go through it

(51:53):
all. By the way, there was marks on
both of their wrists to show that suicide have been
attempted. Air quotes.
Yeah, surely if it was sharp enough to stab him through the
chest. Yep, because you're going
through bone or. So told me that you've got, not
that I'm trying to give anyone tips, but you've told me you've
got a tin of beans there. How sharp is a tin edge?

(52:14):
When the report from David's autopsy was available, it did
indeed support that David has suffered from moderate to severe
dehydration and two stab wings. At the time of his death, law
enforcement would vehemently dispute that the dehydration
would have killed him. It's also in David's autopsy
report that there was urine found in his bladder.
Now coming from a place of previously not really
understanding dehydration, this gave me pause for thought

(52:36):
initially as I just assumed he would have felt the urge to pass
urine even though he wasn't taking in more water, but
apparently not. When it comes to urine in the
body of someone who has passed, you're going to be more
interested in how diluted it was.
So if you were fully hydrated atdeath, your urine would be a
light colour, whereas a person who died whilst dehydrated it
would be dark like a strong whiskey.

(52:56):
In David's autopsy the urine wasvery dark, which supports that
he was dehydrated when he passed, but does IT support that
he was close to death by that alone?
Click was so sure that it wouldn't have killed him that he
publicly said quote. I believe Mr Coughlin was very
much alive when he was killed, no question.
If he been airlifted out of there, he would have been
treated and released and he'd beon his way to Santa Barbara by

(53:19):
now. Expert testimony regarding the
actions of both David and Rafi, based on their own retellings of
what they went through from their own words in the journals,
would back that comment to the hilt.
When commenting on this case, many physicians came out and
spoke about the symptoms that can occur during dehydration.
They are typically disruption tocognitive capacity, delirium,
disorientation, severe changes to concentration, hallucinations

(53:43):
and seizures. It's common for people to
experience some but not all of these.
According to one expert, the severe pain that Rafi Kodikian
described David experience is not standard in these cases.
Doctor Ronan Rubinoff, an associate professor of medicine
and nutrition at Tufts University, Massachusetts, said,
quote, those who are genuinely suffering the effect of severe

(54:05):
dehydration often feel very uncomfortable because they're so
thirsty. He continued by saying.
I wouldn't exactly call that pain.
That is one of the things I don't buy about this story, the
business of pain. So in layman's terms, he said,
quote, a severe lack of water can cause cramp in the muscles,
most likely in the legs. And it would hurt.
But the pain wouldn't be overwhelming, constant pain that

(54:26):
Rafi described, but rather a pain that would come and go in
waves. Scott Montagne, A physiologist
who studies fluid balance issuesat the US Army Research
Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick.
Sorry, but. Thank you, spat that one out.
In Massachusetts provided further information to support
this. He explained the stages of

(54:47):
dehydration as happening like this.
He explained quote that when dehydration is beginning, it
manifests as a normal thirst, but if you don't rehydrate
yourself, it will then progress,resulting in some nagging but
bearable discomforts which will make you start to feel really
rough. Your mood will definitely drop
and you're likely to be very vocal about how awful you're
feeling. Impatience will start slowly,
but before long you will have none and alongside this, you'll

(55:10):
feel incredibly tired and you'lllack motivation, interest and
enthusiasm for anything. If you don't rehydrate yourself
and continue to lose fluids, your body will use what you have
to try and keep the symptoms at Bay.
But by the time you've lost 6% of your body mass quote, you can
expect to see a noticeable change in your speech.
People may not be able to understand what you're saying

(55:30):
due to slurring and mumbling. Maybe you might begin to stumble
as you walk due to dizziness. By the time you've lost 10% of
your body mass, it's essentiallygame over.
Swallowing will become torturousand it is highly unlikely that
you'll be able to stay awake. I've given you quite the rundown
there on dehydration, so maybe now thinking about the quotes
that I said to you before, you can understand that the

(55:52):
retelling of their last days doesn't quite make sense.
Also, the breakdown that you've just given contradicts how Rafi
was found because he was speaking Yep coherently Yep, and
he wasn't slurring his words. He wasn't disorientated, I was
about to say. Also, remember how Mattson
described Rafi when he first found him in terms of these
symptoms? How many was he actually

(56:12):
displaying? The first red flag from the
entries I shared with you is thepassage that David allegedly
wrote in his diary the night before he was found.
The one that was written in pasttense and I told you to put a
pin in it. If that was legitimately written
by David and he was close to death, well it couldn't have
been as he wouldn't have had thecognitive functioning or the
energy to write anything like that at all.

(56:33):
Now just a small FY. I'm not saying Rafi lied about
David being in pain, he could well have been, but it's way
more likely from a source other than dehydration.
One source I found was Rafi explaining that when the alleged
allegedly ran out of water, theybegan to eat cactus fruit plants
and this could cause pain because it can be toxic to
humans. However, wouldn't Rafi have
suffered as well? Exactly.

(56:54):
When the journals were examined,it was also clear that entries
were written in more than one handwriting.
Rafi admitted to writing the entries on the day they were
found. But I don't think it's out of
the realms of possibility to think he wrote a lot more than
that and that David's alleged last entry was written by Rafi
on the Sunday. And that's why it's in past
tense, because he made a mistake.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense to be in past last tense, does it?

(57:15):
No, in the entry written for Sonnet Frost by Rafi, allegedly
on behalf of David, it says he had, quote, barely eaten and
drunk since Wednesday. And this is another big red
flag, as if you remember, Matsonand Makia found food at the
campsite, including the big tin of beans, before dehydration had
a chance to set in. Why did neither of them think to
eat those? It makes no sense because they

(57:36):
actually they weren't idiots. These were intelligent, educated
men. Then if you consider that Rafi
said that on day three, he and David made the merge suicide
plan, if David was so close to death, it's unlikely that he
would be able to think straight enough to make a plan, let alone
verbalise it. I can't go into all of these,
but from listening you will already have been able to make

(57:56):
links yourself I think. For example, if Rafi was also
struggling like he said, how didhe manage to dig a grave, move
his friend's body and lift rocksto cover him?
And he then moved huge rocks to me SOS.
Where did he get the energy for that?
I also don't quite understand why he would put those rocks
over his friend. Why would you do that?
Maybe it was to stop the vultures.

(58:19):
Get too actually, but if it was an SOS that you want somebody to
see from the air actually putting a body next.
To it might have. Helped.
Might have, as sinister as that is.
Yeah, you'd go, oh, that's really serious.
There's actually a person there.Mm hmm.
Now obviously the case against Rafi wasn't based purely on the
scene and his behaviour in the aftermath.
To make a case, law enforcement and prosecutor Les Williams had

(58:42):
to find a motive for why Rafi would want his friend dead.
Click thought the answer would lie in Boston and the friends
they shared. So he sent senior investigator
Captain Eddie Carrasco to try and find a motive that made
sense, something that would explain Rafi's actions.
However, this trip was a total dud with the captain saying
quote, no one I talked with everheard a crossword between them.

(59:05):
Now remember David's sister as well, Kathleen would back this
up saying that they were the same as always when they visited
her on the road trip. This was a big blow to the
prosecution who truly believed that the killing of David
Coughlin when Rafi Kadukian was done with malicious intent.
Something came up at some point about the possibility that David
had slept with a girlfriend of Rafi's at some point, but

(59:28):
nothing else has came from that.Also, I don't think you'd go as
far as plotting this whole trip to go and do that where he did
it if it was that kind of revengeful.
I don't know, because people have done vengeful thing, people
have done some crazy stuff. It's more likely he saw himself
as this enlightened writer and wanted a story to sell.

(59:50):
Which is horrid, but and earlierwhen I said that that was a
possible motive, it kind of falls into my theory.
So I'm going to be biassed now. I wonder if David died before
Saturday, I think. In that extreme heat, it would
be really difficult for a postmortemist to date the time

(01:00:12):
and date of when somebody died. We know it's really difficult
anyway, but because of the heat,it would have skewed the
results. And I wonder if he convinced
David that they'd run out of water, but he was still drinking
water. Yeah, I think something must
have happened. He stabbed David through the
sleeping bag, which is why the sleeping bag got burned.
The bottom of the tent was probably covered in blood so

(01:00:34):
that's gone. And I wonder, did he know
exactly where the car was if they didn't know that car hadn't
left in the first place? Realistically he could have gone
to the car, got rid of evidence elsewhere and came back.
I definitely don't think it's a mercy killing.
I agree with you with the tent in the sleeping bed because the
tent would easily burn. We know that they're extremely
flammable. I'm not saying it was
necessarily burnt though. I think 'cause they would have

(01:00:56):
found remnants of the plastic init.
I think he's got rid of it. Not necessarily.
Well, if you find parts of the sleeping bag, you're bound to
find. Parts, yeah, but that's got a
zipper and stuff, is what I'm thinking would have been
leftover. Would they have gone so far as
to test the ash to see if there was plastics in it?
Probably not. No, but it was said.
What did it say about parts thatI don't think it might.
It wasn't the zipper I don't think that they found anyway.

(01:01:18):
Neither of us are ever going to know, but just.
Thinking. Spitballing, spitballing.
So in May 1999, Rafi Kadukian went to trial and pleaded no
contest to the second degree. Murder by this by stabbing of
David Coughlin. He was being defended by lawyer
Gary Mitchell and initially theywere going to use the defence
that Kodikian suffered from, quote, involuntary intoxication

(01:01:40):
brought on by dehydration. However, this option was taken
away by Judge Jay Forbes. Kodikian was given the right to
appeal this, but given the sentence he was handed down at
the end of trial, I doubt he will take the judge upon it.
There wasn't much on the trial, so obviously the defence was
everything that we've already covered, that he did it because
they'd made this pact, which, yeah.

(01:02:01):
Yeah, put him out of his misery.It was actually I was doing.
I was doing him a favour, Yeah. At sentencing, Judge Forbes
started with, quote, Rafi Kodikian's conduct in this
situation caused the life of David Coughlin to end.
Mr Cochlan was a particular particularly vulnerable victim
and the impact on his family is never and will never be
forgotten by them. As the Kadukian family cried.

(01:02:24):
It is believed that Rafi Kadukian showed genuine remorse
from the beginning and before sentencing, with Judge Forbes
saying he had a conscious and rational understanding of what
he did at the time he murdered David Coughlin.
But Rafi's remorse is genuine. I don't question that.
I can't speak to that because I've not seen any footage.
He followed this up saying, quote, Rafi Kadikian poses no

(01:02:47):
danger to society and sentencinghim to 15 years out of a
possible 20. So that's what he got 15 years
out of 20. For murder.
However, 13 years of this was suspended, so Rafi Kadikian
served two years in prison and was followed.
That was followed by five years probation, so I know.

(01:03:08):
So if he had violated that probation, he would have ended
up doing his 15 years, but he obviously didn't because I've
not found. Anything they're not normally
very lenient in America. They don't normally do things
like that. Like you'd be out for stealing a
pencil sharpener. You know, that's wow.
Even even if he even if it was exactly as he said he needed to
serve a proper sentence, becausewhat he did was completely

(01:03:31):
wrong. I think if he had maybe
suffocated or smothered him or something, that would have shown
more humanity and I could understand and get in a lower
sentence. And I can't understand as well,
like just because mercy killing,killing anybody's illegal light
wrong. But if you see somebody in real
pain, somebody that you love, I do understand when people go and
do things like that. But you don't use a bloody

(01:03:53):
knife. And if there was more evidence
of like if they had have been attacked by a bear or bitten by
a snake or something, there's more evidence of that I would
have, I would have understood slightly more.
But for him to have a tummy ache?
Well, I understand the dehydration thing.
I do totally get that because it, the, the effects of it are
obviously horrifying. Yeah.

(01:04:13):
However, then you've got what looks like bottles that are
staged to show, look, we ran outof water, they had food.
There was a map, there was a topographical map that
apparently was Rafi's. And Rafi would say, oh, I
thought we burnt that when we were trying to call for help.
Right. And then a neurologist came out
and said for some reason Rafi wouldn't have understand it,

(01:04:35):
understood that MAP couldn't anything else about it.
But the guy is a writer, so he understands words.
I'm pretty sure his writings, not all.
I went to the shop. It's all flowery and floaty.
Yeah. So I do think that he should
have served time because I don'tthink that it was.
And he's a writer. It would have given him time to
work on his art. Jeffrey Archer Style No he.

(01:04:59):
Was in the prison that I worked at.
Are you allowed to say that? Yeah, I think so.
OK. I think it was common knowledge.
I mean, he actually ran the library in the prison there.
Oh, I remember you saying. Yeah, because I did.
Wait, wait, wait. Let me just finish off the case.
And then. So yeah, my theory is, and I
want to hear your theory. I'll tell you my theory, I'll
tell you the end. And then you could tell me what
you think. But my theory is I don't think

(01:05:21):
he was. I put him out of his misery.
I think some something happened because otherwise why did he go
and write entries into the Diaries now we've not seen the
whole Diaries. There were never released.
There's 16 entries that he used at court, but he was writing for
his friend. I don't think there was any need
to do that. He could have said before David
died, he said this if he was going to kill himself, there was

(01:05:42):
other ways he could have done it.
You know, like you said, he could have used the 10.
He was fine. You know, he posed himself I
think in that lying down with the tarp over him.
What was he just waiting to die and he was fine within an hour
have been in the hospital getting tests done.
He was fine. So it none of it makes.
Sense it's really it, it's not straightforward at all.

(01:06:02):
No, but I don't believe he ever intended to kill himself.
No, I don't either. And I think, yeah, stabbing
someone is too brutal. You wouldn't do it if it was
genuinely out of mercy. That's horrendous that that you
just wouldn't and like you say you had.
To do it twice. Why with the journal entries and

(01:06:22):
unless it was a case of oh God I'm what if I survive, I'm going
to get in trouble. Yeah, but to think.
He always knew he was going to survive if.
You were if you were just dehydrated.
Just he made a doubt. You wouldn't think that, though.
You wouldn't think to yourself, oh, what have I survived?
They're going to think I've donesomething, so I better because
it'll show that he died of dehydration.

(01:06:44):
But you've just stuck a knife through his chest twice.
Yeah. The Coughlin family didn't
attend the sentencing. And I'm ending it with their
thoughts because they're the ones that really matter in all
this. They sent a fax with a statement
to the prosecutor, Les Williams,and it said we can think of no
reason why Rafi would have wished David any harm or pain.
Moreover, we cannot presume to know what transpired or the

(01:07:06):
thoughts and emotions the two experienced during the days
before David's death. To be sure, we have questions.
However, we find it difficult tobelieve there was any malicious
intent. And I think maybe you have to
feel that or you would go mad, wouldn't you?
Yeah. Basically believe in a higher
power, don't they? Like you're saying about
religion and stuff, I think theythere must be some something in
their faith that's keeping them of that opinion because I would

(01:07:29):
probably have a much more difficult job to to feel that
way. Yep, me too.
Yeah. And I suppose, like you say,
good for them. Not in a God.
That sounds patronising. Oh, it doesn't say patronising.
You meant if that's the way theycall.
Yeah, then then I'm glad that they've got that.
So what is he doing now, I wonder?
Excuse me, I didn't look it up, but I've got a feeling he's some
sort of public speaker, if I remember rightly from when I

(01:07:52):
first heard about the. Case and did he release a book?
Has he released anything about this?
I honestly never looked probably.
Or is it something he wants to forget?
Not That would be a tell, wouldn't it?
Yeah, it was a good case. Yeah, I know.
It's definitely. Really interesting.
I really thought there was goingto be more snakes involved.
Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.
I. Slipped that in there on

(01:08:13):
purpose. Not that I want to make it.
It's not about making it more entertaining.
It was about this is the desperate situation they were
in. Yeah.
But I just think and other people have came out and said if
it was them, they think they would have carried their friend
who was really struggling out ofthere.
If they had to, one of them could have gone and found out.
You hear about the adrenaline and people lifting cars and

(01:08:35):
stuff, don't you? It's it's definitely not black
and white, is it? No it isn't.
And if they were best friends aswell.
I also think if he died the day before, that's a lot for
somebody who is dehydrate, supposedly dehydrated and very
close to death to do with all the rocks, with all the
lumbering and and they kept the fires going, didn't they?

(01:08:56):
So they were obviously getting wood for that.
No, the fires were, oh, they were totally gone.
Yeah. All right.
So I just wonder, was it planned?
Did he always intend to do something?
And the other interest? Who chose that location?
I was about to say, so David's uncle had been there and he had
recommended it and I'm pretty sure he would have said quite
rough going, but it's worth it and blah, blah, blah.
So they didn't go in. They're blind.

(01:09:18):
They didn't went with that in mind.
They didn't say where's a good place to hike for two people
that enjoy hiking but would likeamenities near to this.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that is the story of
David Coughlin. Did his ashes get?
Don't know they his family are very private.
They've not released like sharedanything like that.
Respect that. Yeah.
Yeah. Hopefully he got wish to be

(01:09:39):
scattered in the Grand Canyon. Was that his wish?
Oh well, yeah, was that genuine 0?
Oh, you just throw it in there at.
Me. Before we go, I'd like to share
a podcast that I've listened to.It's called Missing in the
Amazon. In one of the most remote
corners of the Amazon jungle, a journalist and an indigenous
defender disappear without a trace.

(01:10:01):
Missing in the Amazon is a six part investigative podcast that
looks into what happened to them, told for the first time by
the people closest to them. His best friend actually worked
on it. So is this something that you've
listened to and definitely recommend?
Yes, I personally, I put my stamp on this.
It is from the Guardian missing in the Amazon.
And I have one more that I've also listened to.

(01:10:22):
I listen to a podcast called Case File, but I have to say it
properly. It's an Australian one, Case
File. Case File's the main podcast,
but I think they produce other podcasts as well, like Little
Series. Baby Podcast.
Yeah, and there's one called missing.
How do they say it again? Missing.
Nema. Nema.
The name is spelt Neve in the traditional way NI AM H.

(01:10:44):
But when Neve was born, her parents thought, oh, a lot of
people won't know how to say this so they called her by the
other name. And it's a couple of weeks ago
since I listened to it so I can't remember.
But anyway, Neve, I'm just goingto read the about on it.
You'll find it on Spotify. When 18 year old Neve went
missing in 2002, her family did everything they could to help
the police to find her. But like so many missing persons

(01:11:04):
cases, there comes a time when the leads dry up and there's
nowhere left to look. Searching what was meant to be a
single episode, the Case File host finds so many intriguing
elements. He took four years to make this
series, and it's definitely worth the listen.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
You're very we'll share those aswell.
We can. Can we?
Yes, I can share. The links and stuff once this is

(01:11:26):
out. Yep, I shall put a note to do
that. Excellent day.
And if you guys wanted to leave us any reviews or recommend us
to people that would be fantabulous.
And if you've got any. Cases.
Cases that you want us to cover.I have a couple in the bag that
people have recommended to me. They will probably may be
becoming at some point. If you do want to recommend a

(01:11:49):
case for us, you need to e-mail us at the
criminalcrack@gmail.com but in the title of the e-mail, don't
name the case. Choose which one of us you would
like to cover it and then only that person will open the
e-mail. E-mail so because we.
Like to put either gem or Vic. That's all you need to do.
You can put gem or Victoria caserecommendation but the other

(01:12:12):
person will promise pinky promise not to look.
So thank you for being here. As always, we love you all.
Love you. And we'll see you next time.
Bye bye. Keep on tracking.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EPISODE 7: ROAD TRIP