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July 28, 2025 63 mins
We're away this week putting the finishing touches on our new studio, but we'll be back with a brand-new episode on August 8th! Until then, please enjoy a classic from the vault: "Daniel Robinson - Sonoran Desert - Arizona." We've remastered the audio, so it sounds better than ever. (Originally aired: January 13, 2023)

On June 23rd, 2021, a geologist working on a remote job site in the Sonoran Desert, west of Phoenix Arizona, started behaving strangely shortly after arriving for the day.  His coworker noticed him looking off into the desert with a blank stare before getting into his car and driving off, never to be seen again.  Join us this week as we investigate the bizarre disappearance of Daniel Robinson and the puzzling discovery a month later that leaves more questions than answers.  (Episode 76)

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Crime Off The Grid
Off The Trails
The Peanut Butter and Mountains Podcast
The Weirdos We Know  
Who Runs This Park

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Hosts: Mike Van de Bogert & Joe Erato

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
us as we dive into the deep end of the
unexplainable and try to piece together what happened. You are
listening to Locations Unknown.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
What's up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of
Locations Unknown. I your co host Joe E. Rod On
with me, as always, is a guy who always eats
his ovaltine Mike van de Bogart.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you, Joe, and thank you to all our loyal listeners.
We are back after a little mini break over the months.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, it was it only like a month.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I think our last episode was December, like sixteenth. I
should know when it was.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So little less than a month, but almost a month.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, but I think we actually recorded that one like
a week or two early.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh that's why it feels like us.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, okay, but we're back after this. We're recording a
fun Patreon or supporter episode with a bunch of voicemails
that we've received over the last six seven months.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah. I love that fan tweety skeleton. It's like waiting
for another episode of Locations and I was like, hey, lucky,
you were doing it tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I could good tweet timing.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Just before we go in, just a couple announcements. First,
we'd like to give a shout out to all of
the new Patreon members. So we've got Cambria, Emily Carrey,
Athena Van Overshelled, Paul Garcia Junior, Peter Smith, Jordine Lucas,
and Angie Baldwin. So thank you so much for supporting
the show.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
We've got a lot of exciting things we'd like to
do in twenty twenty three. We'll see if the stars
aligned for some of this stuff to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I think so. With our growth continuing to grow, yeah,
the growth growth, growth, that's now it's going to decline.
This episode's gonna release is going boom.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
As we always say every episode. If you like us,
hate us, have suggestions, whatever is, give us a call
at two eight three nine one six nine one three,
leave a voicemail and you'll end up on an episode
if it's funny or mean enough.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, you can. Also we also put people who just
say nice things, yeah, yeah, just nice We like those too.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
And funny ones. We've gotten some really funny ones also.
We you can help support the show through many different means.
You can go to Patreon, YouTube memberships, We have a
premium subscription on Apple. We also have a store with
lots of swag, so check any of those areas out
to if you want to help us monetarily. If you
know it's you just got done with Christmas you spend

(03:03):
all your money on gifts, you can still help us
out for free by telling all of your family and
friends about locations unknown. Yep, just get annoying.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Follow us on all the socials.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Be like a bitcoin bro, but for locations unknown. Anyone
who knows someone into crypto will get that.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Finally, a couple announcements. I just want to We had
an AI art contest a couple of weeks ago and
I haven't mailed out the swag yet, but that stuff
will be going out this month. I also want to apologize.
So we actually get quite a few emails and messages
across the different platforms, and I've been very slow to
respond to all of it, primarily because the holidays. But

(03:44):
if you've emailed us or messaged us and haven't gotten
a response, just hang in there. I'll eventually get to
all those, just as Joe and I predicted we had
some controversy with Mount San Jacinto. That's how we keep
saying Jess Sinto. So that's Google's fault. Gentlemen on Instagram

(04:05):
messaged us.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Was he mean about or was he nice about it?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
No?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
He was cool.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
He started off about loving the podcast. So that's a
good way to start off.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
See, even in Portuguese they say, jesseine tole me. Let
me go to English and see what they say. I'm
not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying I have a
good reason why we're wrong. Maybe Santo.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, So I mean we we followed Google and we're
obviously wrong. We've had many locals message us it's this
guy on Instagram even spelled it out ha dash scene
dash toe so.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
C s e E n scene ha scene toe. So
probably probably will still screw it.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
If that's wrong, message us again and tell us how
we're wrong there.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
But he was nice. I trust that guy.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
So that's the end of my announcements.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
All right, everybody, let's gear up and get out to
explore locations unknown. June twenty third, twenty twenty one, a

(05:20):
geologist was on a job site with another coworker in
the Sonoran Desert. His coworker said that during work, he
simply looked up into the distance, got into his car,
and drove off. Join us this week as we investigate
the strange disappearance of Daniel Robinson. So, Mike, before I

(06:10):
get into the location, we actually have new news you
brought to light that's two days old.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
A day old, that's very recent, kind of related. Yeah, So, actually,
skeletal remains have been found in the Sonoran Desert, one
place I read about twelve miles fromhere he initially went missing.
So there's a lot of speculation swirling around that these
may belong to Daniel, but his father has already come

(06:36):
out and said that it's not Daniel. Because we'll get
into some of the details, but he some of the
items found with the skeleton doesn't make sense with the
stuff that was found in this case. So there hasn't
been any DNA analysis yet, so we don't know. Okay,
it could turn out to be Daniel Robinson, but I
just figured right away before we start the episode. We'll

(06:59):
make note of that because it's it just happened.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, and anyone that's listening I did hear about it.
Will just be just regular in their chair. Are they
gonna mention it?

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, all right, so get on with it, Joe.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Okay, So we're in the Sonoran Desert, the sublications near
the intersection of Sun Valley Parkway and Cactus Road. What
my takes over you'll see on the screen. I'll be
going through some pictures and stuff. It is in Arizona.
But the Snorin Desert spans approximately one hundred thousand square
miles in the southwestern Arizona, southwestern California, most of Baja California. Oh,

(07:31):
in the western half of the state of Sonora, Mexico,
southeastern Califa, southeastern Sorry, yeah, my bad. Yeah. So it's
roughly the same size as South Korea and Iceland, not together,
just how you gave it too, independently. Yeah, so there
you go. It's like this. If you're watching, it's just
it's big.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
And baha, you're missing that.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh yeah, I'm not even all the way over. Yeah.
A lot of sand, a lot of sand.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
But actually there's tundra in the Sonoran Desert. Oh and
tropical by all right, we'll Joe get into that.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
When was it established mic Around eight million years ago
in a late Miocene period, so it's home to seventeen
different Native American tribes, home to major cities including Phoenix,
which is a metropopulation of four point seven million, Tucson
with one million, Mexicali, Baja California one million, and her
most Celio Sonora. I'm gonna get yelled at for that

(08:26):
one nine hundred thousand. I'm gonna throwing that in the
so a lot of people live.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
In the Sonoran Desert.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Her most Celio is that what do you think it is? Before?

Speaker 3 (08:33):
I that sounds good to me.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Formo Hermo Cilio Cilo.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
You know Google is not right.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
No, Sonora airms Ceo Sonora. I'm not even gonna try
that again.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
I'm gonna yeah, you get proudly you have problem with
the els.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah I do. I do. Some interesting facts about the
Snorin desert. It's home to the only jaguar population United States.
I would not have guessed that.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
I just don't assume there'd be any cat species in
the desert, Like, I just don't know why.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
But because it's such a huge area and there's a
lot of different biomes, it does kind of make sense.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
So it just shows how a little I know about
Snoring Desert is world It's world famous for its numerous
types of cacti that grow in it, especially the famous
Segura seguaro cactus, which only grows there. This tree like
cactus can grow up to twelve meters or forty feet tall.
That is actually really cool. Yeah, I didn't know that
at all. Cacti aren't the only plants that grow in

(09:31):
this part of the world, as the Snoring Desert is
home to over two thousand different types of plants based
on the landscape and climate of the desert. This is
the highest number of plants growing in any desert in
the world and is mainly caused by bi seasonal rainfall. Cool.
We got a lot of cool stuff in North America. Yeah,
we take it. It's just we don't think about it
because we live here, so it's everywhere else. Yes, Oh god, really,

(09:54):
you did this on purpose? I did. I'm gonna look
at it for a second. The Drosophilia met Larry met
Larry mets Larry. Do you know what it is?

Speaker 3 (10:04):
I mean, I know what it is, I don't know
how to say it.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Joe Sophila met Larry, better known as the Sonoran desert fly.
That's what we should have led with. I'm throwing this
one in here too, just for fun. Larry, better known
as the Snorin desert fly, actually managed to find it
a way to survive. The snorin desert using rotting cacti
its ability to detoxify the liquid spilled by rotting cacti

(10:30):
and uses the soil to breathe.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
So it's actually, it's kind of interesting. It's this fly
can only live in this part of the world because
it has to have the special kind of chemicals that
come from that specific rotting cactus.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
That's crazy. And you know there's probably some other bird
or something that relies on that thing, yeah, to stay alive,
and then something else eats that bird, and yeah, all
for an area that's pretty much uninhabitable unless you have
all these very special traits. Alongside the oasis in the
Colorado Desert, one of the sections of Snoring Desert grows

(11:05):
the only native palm in California. This palm is called
California fan palm or the washing Washingtonia phili Fera phili fara,
and grows up to fifteen to twenty meters or forty
nine to sixty six feet tall and three to six
meters or ten to twenty feet wide. We're introducing meters

(11:26):
for our foreign audience. Yes, you can be fined ten
thousand dollars for transplanting that tree. I'm not kissing Seguaro
Saguaro without a proper license Arizona's Protected Plants Law. The
Snoring Desert receives more rainfall than any other desert. It
receives approximately ten inches a year on average due to
its proximity to the ocean. The eastern part of the
Snore Desert, the Baja area, receives ten to twelve inches.

(11:49):
That's really cool. I didn't know all those things about
the desert.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah there, you don't even think about the Snoring Desert.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I don't. I don't think about a lot of desert.
I think about the African because it used to be
a tropical rainforest way back, so that's always cool to me. Climate.
So Snoring Desert is an arid subtropical climate, as you
could have guessed, but interspersed between the Mojave and the
Chihua chehuhuan we this is another one Shi.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
People that hate our pronunciation are really gonna have a
hard time. We are to put a trigger warning at
the beginning.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
I don't care. I always say that, but I like
that's I know, and I'm so bad at it because
I'm trying to think and talk and I'm not smart
enough to do both. The Snoring Desert receives the frequent
low intensity winters and December January rains of the former,
as well as the violent summer of July and August

(12:45):
or monsoon thunderstorms of the latter. Winter precipitation occurs when
a low pressure trough develops over the Western United States,
pushing the prevailing Pacific storm tracks south over the Snoring Desert.
Annual precipitation in this Snorin Desert averages from seventy six
to five hundred millimeters or three to twenty inches, depending

(13:06):
on the location, with substantial inner and intra annual variability
in timing and quantity. Precipitation is typically much higher with
elevation due to the orographic effects of the sky islands,
with sizeable portions occurring at snowfall. As snowfall interesting.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I put this in here just so people know. I
didn't know what it was.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
What the orographic effect is. The oor graphic effect creates
deserts by ensuring that the leeward slopes of a mountain
range always experience very little precipitation. Or the orographic effect
is the phenomenon which mountain ranges force an air mass
to gain altitude. So I always thought that was rain shadow.
Is that just like the official word for rain shadow.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
I don't know, but basically it just forces warmer, moist
air higher in elevation and it gets colder and.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Causes it shoots the clouds up so they can't go
across and drop water. They just drop on the top
of the mountain and they're out of water. Yep. So
the snoring is a hot desert. Summer air temperatures routinely
exceed forty degrees celsius or one hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit,
and often reach one hundred and eighteen degrees fahrenheit or
forty eight degrees celsius. These high near surface temperatures interact

(14:13):
with cool moist air in the atmosphere to produce violent
thunderstorms of the summer monsoons. As moisture on the soil
surface and near surface air evaporate following a storm, temperatures
may drop to fifty degrees or ten degrees celsius. This
is crazy.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
I didn't know this.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's cold.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Fifty degrees fahrenheit in minutes.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, that's like, yeah, that's a fifty percent reduction swing
in minutes. That's insane.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
You would feel like that would feel really weird.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, that will, Yes, it will. Winter temperatures are mild,
with valley bottoms typically free of frost, while the surrounding
mountains may have dense snow cover. At higher elevations and
north and east aspects. During any season, diurnal swings of
fifteen degrees celsius or fifty nine degrees fahrenheit are or

(15:01):
or more are common, as a dry atmosphere and relatively
low vegetation cover facilitate re radiation of daytime heat into
the atmosphere. Overnight deserts are cool.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
They are cool.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
They seem so arid and like pointless. Yeah, but they're
like it's I remember I was watching it was like
Earth at night. It was a Netflix, and they go
over like the different ecosystems at night, and the stuff
that deserts do when it gets dark out is insane.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah. Cool. I the only hike I've really done in
a desert environment was Canyon Lens where you almost died.
But I would love to get I would love to
see Death Valley. Yeah, a lot of these places.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
When we take the show on the road, will go.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Terrain geography is mostly broad flat valleys with widely scattered
small mountain ranges of mostly barren rock. There is also
a sand sea, the Grand Deserto, and the spectacular Pinacate
volcanic Field. The valleys are dominated by low shrubs, primarily
creasote bush. I'm not gonna read that. I'm really hitting

(16:01):
you with a lot of you are and the white bursage.
These are the two most drought tilert plants in North America.
Are those the ones that roll that create the I
have no clue, Yeah, I have no idea. I just
I'm just guessing. The Snoring Desert is home to numerous
biomes you wouldn't expect for a dessert, tundra, temperate deciduous forests, grasslands,

(16:21):
chaparral chaparral desert, thorn scrub, and tropical forest. We've switched
roles here. Normally you're having trouble with words, and I'm
teasing you.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
I'm feeling good today.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
This is just yeah, you're feeling good like I loaded
it up, You're screwed. So what are the types of
dangers outside of just being in the desert. Some of
the animals you have a bark, scorpion, bobcats, coyotes, desert tortoise, diamondback, rattlesnakes, geela, monsters,
mule deer, and the tarantula.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
So I also, since oh I don't have that any
did I miss putting that in here? I had some oh,
it's down here further kind of tips to do if
you get bit by rattlesnake.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
All right, we'll get to that one. Okay, Sorry, does
it suck it out? Yeah? That was the old way. Yeah.
Tips for safely hiking in the stormy desert. Avoid hiking
attempts over eighty nine degrees, so you never want to
set on a hike if the temps are already past ninety.
Above ninety is considered in the danger zone.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
You'll start hearing Kenny Loggins.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Dude, you are on point. You beat me to a
Kenny Logan's reference. I'm gonna pause real quick. I saw
a meme that was hilarious and it was the cover
of Kenny Login's Christmas album called December, and it was
it said, I was really disappointed to see that Kenny
Loggins named his album December and not Highway to the
Manger Zone. That's pretty solid Christmas, Kenny Logins, Joe, that's

(17:42):
awesome all right. Even with the dry weather, it can
feel much hotter with the intense sunshine. Most trailheads have
temperature gauge which will let you know the risk level
based on the current temps. So if it's over eighty nine,
do not attempt. Yes, you want to head out at sunrise.
The massive difference between the low and the high tempts
for the day can vary by as much as thirty degrees.

(18:04):
Because of the ground absorbing the sun's heat all day.
Sunrise hikes are preferable to sunset hikes. It's much much
cooler in the morning hours, not to mention quieter and
less crowded as well. Keep it short. First time desert
hikers will want to keep it short. This also goes
for anyone hiking during the hot summer season. With the
intense sunshine, heat, dry conditions, uneven rocks, landscapes, a desert

(18:26):
hike can feel much longer. You don't want to bring
lots of water for very obvious reasons, and you also
want to bring some salty food or snacks. It's important
to eat more salty snacks to restore electrolytes, especially if
you're drinking extra water, because if you don't have electrolytes,
the water won't absorb into your body. Or you can
bring electrolyte infused water if you're rich. You can buy

(18:47):
especially energy cubes at all sports stores that simply pack
your own trail mixed pretzels, crackers, peanut butter packets. A
few recommendations and choice. For longer hikes, you want to
carry an electrolyte replacement drink or enter gbar. Now what
to do if you see a rattlesnake? If you're our
buddy men, you jump fifteen feet in the air and
you have a vertical that beats most NBA players due

(19:10):
to adrenaline. Yes, when you see it, but the best
way to avoid getting bit is to watch where you
put your feet so you don't have to jump at
a five foot vertical away from it. That's how people
get bit by putting their hands and feet in a
place without looking first.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, that's the real The easiest way to prevent a
rattlesnake bite is just do what we've always said, be
aware of your surroundings.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
When you're hiking, they're usually just sunning themselves in chilling Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Their colors kind of blend in with the ground, so
it might not be obvious that there's a rattlesnake new
where you're standing, so.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
You'll find out if you get it wrong. Scorbions are
nocturnal creatures, so you're unlikely to see one on the
trail unless you are hiking at night. If you do
come across one, do keep your distance. I've been stung
by a scorpion. It sucks. It's like ten bees singing
in the same spot. I bet wear the right type
of clothing. Clothes toe hiking and athletic shoes, long sleeved shirts,
in long pants in light colors, and wide brim hat

(20:04):
provide the best production. Now, people never understand this. Yeah,
you do not want your skin exposed. It burns, and
when your skin burns, it releases more water than sweating. Yeah,
so if your skin's exposed to the sun, even if
it's not burning yet, you release more water than sweating
when it's covered.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
And have you ever tried hiking when you're sunburned or
trying to sleep in a like a crappy tent when you're.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Swiping sand with machine.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
It's hot, it's like fun.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, you want sunburned back and then sleep on sandpaper. Yeah,
that's what's gonna happen if you don't dress appropriately. So
let's learn about Dan.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
We're learning about So our subject of this case is
Daniel Robinson. He was twenty four years old. He went
missing on June twenty third of twenty twenty three. He
was a male African American.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Twenty one oh June twenty three hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Sorry, he was. He went missing on June twenty three
of twenty twenty one. He was a five foot eight,
one hundred and sixty five pounds. He was brown eyes,
black hair. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. We
don't know he didn't really have any gear on him
because he wasn't out hiking. He was actually on the job.

(21:16):
Safe to assume unless he had something in his car.
He didn't have any survival gear with him. Family and
friends said he was a keen outdoorsman, musician and traveler
who was always close with his family and remained in
constant contact with his parents and siblings. He did have
I guess you could call this a medical issue. Part
of his right forearm and hand were missing as a
result of a birth defect. Yeah, but it's not news,

(21:38):
so he'd probably like nobody, he probably just fine born
with it. That's their reality. They he didn't know what
it was like with two hands, so I'm sure he
probably functioned just fine.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, if it was like a recent injury or something,
then it would maybe be of note.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
So he graduated from a College of Charleston in twenty
nineteen with a major in archaeology. He then attended a
course in Tucson and soon after was offered a job
by the engineering firm Matrix New World, and that's where
he ended up. He was I guess his title was geologist,
and he was working on a well, which I'm assuming
is a water well, though I don't think there's oil

(22:14):
on that part of Arizona, but I could be wrong'd.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
By the city. I'm guessing it was working in the well.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
So we'll jump right into timeline. That is kind of
just a little quick description of Daniel himself. So it's
June twenty third, twenty twenty one, around between nine fifteen
and nine thirty am. Daniel Robinson is his coworker Ken Elliott,
who was a pump technician, were assessing a remote drill

(22:41):
site in the Snoring Desert west of Phoenix. It was
located near the town of Buckeye, Arizona. Y That pulled
up Joe has pulled up For anyone watching this on YouTube,
this was only his second day on the job. Ken
would go on to describe to authorities that Daniel was
initially fine as they discussed things like the weather and
the job. Ken Elliott went on to say that it

(23:04):
was an abnormally cool day for the area and kind
of had never met Robinson before and they were to
work on a deep well. But within a short period,
Robinson became distracted. Elliott went on to quote he was
just looking off into the desert. He had a very
very distant look in his eyes. Whenever he'd turn around again,

(23:24):
I would look at him and look into his eyes.
The first thing I thought was maybe it was drugs
or something, but his pupils weren't dilated. From that standpoint,
everything appeared to be normal. Then I thought this was
a medical condition or something. I wasn't too sure. I
kept watching him, but he just kept turning around and
looking off into the desert. Then he just turned around

(23:45):
and walked back over to his jeep, and I just
assumed he was going to get something out of his vehicle,
and he opened the door, got in, sat down, put
on his seat belt, then looked at me and just waved,
backed up and took off. At that point, Robinson drove
off in his blue cheap renegade. Elliott told his coworkers
by phone about phone what had happened, and, assuming that

(24:07):
Daniel wasn't Fillia Wallin would call him sick. However, no
one heard from Daniel after that. He was supported missing
to the Buckeye Police Department the same day. Elliott later
followed Daniel's jeep tracks in the rain soaked dirt around
in the rain soaked dirt. Let me start that over.
We have in trouble now.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
It has been like a month since we've done this. Yes,
so he's a little off.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Elliott later followed Daniel's cheap tire tracks in the rain
soaked dirt road and found that instead of going left
at a t junction to Phoenix, he actually went right
deeper into the snoring desert. So first problem, there's Phoenix
is not that far away from where I mean, they're
in a remote area, but one direction takes it to

(24:53):
a huge city. In the other direction just off in
the nothing, there's literally nothing the other direction. The search
and rescue operation kicked off pretty quick. In this case,
it was led by the Buckeye Police Department. They had
a lot of different assets at their disposal. They were
using UTVs, cadaverdog, cadaverdog's searchers on foot, and drones flying overhead,

(25:15):
along with assistants in the air from the Phoenix Firebird
helicopters and the Civil Air Patrol. But the Civil Air
Patrol actually didn't check in until later in the search.
And I think Joe will show some pictures that we
have of the search and of Daniel himself. So it

(25:35):
is now June twenty fourth of twenty and twenty one.
Tempe police were dispatched to check Robinson's apartment on June
twenty fourth, but they actually never went inside, so the
search continued for several weeks. Family members traveled from the
east coast Arizona to join the search, which at this
point had covered an area of seventy square miles, so.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
This is just nothing. Yeah, like, look at this map.
It's like, okay, I don't know where that is.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
That looks like I think it's got the roads named.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
That might be the West Cactus Road. Yeah, alright, let's
see if I can find West Cactus Road.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
So your original map that you had pulled up, you
had the junction of the Parkway and West Cactus Road.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
So it's not that one.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
No, that zoomed in the Buckeye. It's kind of north
of Buckeye.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I think I see what it. So one of the
roads has to be the parkway. What's that? That's what? Yeah,
Valley Parkway s sun Valley Parkway.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, so that where that road intersects with the other
road is kind of where they were.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
So you go sun Valley Parkway, Buckeye, Arizona. That's a
good start. Oh yeah, it's way over there. We go.
That makes more sense, yep. But yeah it's desolate. Oh
my gosh, yeah, it's there's nothing train tracks or is
that No, that's that's the parkway. Okay, this is like
a dirt road that goes parallel. So that is a whole.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
And like I said, family members were flying out from
the East coast, and the search area now was up
to seventy square miles. Detectives did say they had obtained
a ping from Daniel's phone, but were unable to track
it due to the phone being off or out of range.
So the law enforcement actually was able to get a

(27:21):
warrant to get phone records and they learned that he
had not Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
That's a substation. So they last saw him on the
road and the job site was up.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Here, yeah, right here, Yeah, very remote, and we actually
have a video of a gentleman from Web Sleuths who
actually went out here and recorded there it is.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Oh, is that this is the job site? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:46):
So yeah, we have a video. We'll just claim the
background of kind of the area to give you a
sense of how desolate and remote this area is.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Oh no, this is this is it? Sorry?

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Oh? Is that the pump?

Speaker 2 (27:59):
That's the pump?

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah? Or the drill site?

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
So, like I said, police were able to obtain call
records for Daniel, and they learned that he had not
made any calls or text after leaving the job site. Detectives,
along with Daniel's family, worked to obtain phone and financial information,
but did not locate any information which would aid in
locating him. What map you got up here? This might
just be a.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Search, ThReD, is it? Yeah, it's a search grid zoomed out. Yeah,
that was the job site in guy police. Yeah, so
it's just farther out. It's just a grid map yep
of like this view right here. Yeah, so it's been terrible.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Like I said, they didn't find any financial information or
any phone records from his personal or work phone since
his disappearance. His family and friends and coworkers said that
in the days prior to his disappearance he was not
like himself, but said there was no indication that he
wished harm to himself or wanted to leave the area.
Several mine shafts were actually searched in the area too,

(29:00):
but there was no sign of Daniel. And we had
some pictures that the police department posted a few pictures
of the mine search. I think if you go out
one folder, okay.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, search, he's a great job labeling. Yeah. Oh yeah,
he's looking in the mine shaft.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yep, looking in the d So there you go. Probably
some kind of camera on the end of that string yep.
But yeah, so they searched mine shafts and obviously didn't
find anything. We have a press release from the Buckeye
Police Department. Buckeye Police conducted targeted searches this week in
an effort to locate Daniel Robinson, who has been missing
since June twenty third. These searches took place in the

(29:37):
desert area where Daniel's vehicle was recovered. We didn't get
to that yet. Investors focused on locations where volunteer search
crews reported their tracking dogs had previously alerted. Buckeye's PD
did followup with searches, and they found no evidence of Daniel. Today,
investiar has used a robot equipped with a camera to
search two mine shafts, one of them more than seventy

(29:59):
five feet deep. They also found no sign of Daniel.
Kind of interesting they were using some kind of robot
to search the mind shaft. So now it is July
seventh of twenty twenty one and police actually finally entered
Robinson's home roughly two weeks after he was reported missing
and didn't find any evidence leading to them to They

(30:23):
didn't find any evidence to his whereabouts, so nothing out
of the arth.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Oh they were like still thinking maybe he's not in it,
Like maybe he just left and went home and didn't
tell anybody.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, at this point his car had not been found yet,
so they really had no theories. All thought like may
he just drove a weird way and yeah, got home.
This is also around the time when the Civil Air Patrol, which.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
That's a weird SAR situation where they're not even sure
if the person's actually missing.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, that's tough. He drove down a dirt road into
a desert, like in a in the conditions were pretty wet,
so tracks probably weren't presuer What do you do. I
give them credit for the size of the search with
the limited information that they had. Oh, now you're pulling.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Up stuff for the vehicle.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
So it is now July nineteenth of twenty twenty one,
so almost a month after Daniel disappeared. A rancher called
a rancher by the name of Brandon Shelton found his
twenty seven twenty seventeen Jeep Renegade with the license plate
NLA to CMA in a ravine. It was just four
miles from the work site where he was last seen.

(31:34):
But Daniel was not at the scene. The jeep had
landed on its side with significant damage. Police said the
seatbelt had been worn at the time, and the airbags
were found deployed. One of Robinson's size eleven and a
half red wing workboots was stuck under the truck. Shelton,
whose cattle grays fourteen thousand acres in the Buckeye area,

(31:56):
is convinced the car had only been in the ravine
that leads to the the river on his property a
short while. When he came across it, sane it was clean,
and my cows would have been would have found it.
Cows are inquisitive creatures and would have licked it. So
he thinks it was relatively clean. But the family actually
hired a private investigator and they went into the black

(32:18):
box of the jeep, and it doesn't seem like the
jeep had been Wait, there's a black box and jeeps back.
There's a black box in all cars, Like really pretty sure? Yeah,
I can tell you, like or is it like just
the car's computer. Well, it's not like a black box
in an airport.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Okay, that's what he made me think. I'm like, it's
not like.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Recording like conversations in the cabin at a car.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
But it's like what radio station has been listening.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
To It records like the time of an accident, things
like that.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I did not know that. Yeah, that's kind of cool
and creepy.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
I'm probably wrong on it. I thought almost all cars
keep talking.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
I'll correct other people.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
So, like we said, the rancher thinks the jeep was
there pretty recently. But I have my doubts about when
the jeep got there, just based on what the private
investigator found. But the jeep was found in area that
had already been searched, with police saying because of the
rough terrain, the vehicle was not clearly visible to cruise
searching by Aaron foot. The vehicle contained Robinson's clothes, phone, wallet, keys,

(33:19):
and a bottle of water. T shirt, jeans turned inside out, shorts,
orange work vests, boots, and a two mismatch black socks
were all located. One of the socks was a Nike
and the other was an Adidas. According to police, this
is strange. The cell phone was missing a memory card
and wiped clean. However, police were reportedly able to still

(33:41):
download some files from the phone, which showed he was
texting a girl and showed up at her home, and
I actually have more information on that as well coming up.
So here's a little more detail.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
From real quick. You are correct. Car black box collects
driving information before, during, and after collision.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
The device's formal name is the Event Data Recorder.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
I thought it's speed acceleration, breaking, steering and earbag activation
and recorded.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah, it's not like continuously recording.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
It says it does like twenty seconds before an accident,
so it's probably a rolling record, so it is deleting
constantly until a thing happens.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Any given point it has twenty seconds of data and
then if an accident happens, then it starts recording.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, so it said it. They can generally record up
to only three events before older events automatically erase themselves.
Cool neat So I didn't know about that. Oh, and
you can remove them legally. There's no law that says
you can't. So if you don't want that in your car,
look up how to remove it, and it won't affect
your cars driving according to the website I looked up.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
All right, So we do actually have the police report
for this disappearance, and we've got some more detailed information
on the condition of the vehicle.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Do you notice how I thought like finding a car
in the desert would be easy. Look at that, that's
the car. Zoom in on that. That's the car. That's
as far as to let me zoom. That would be
incredibly hard to see from the air.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
I've been looking at that picture all day and didn't
know the car was in it.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Well, Mike, it literally has a big red arrow pointing
go back to the other one. So he had a
giant red arrow pointing to where the car is in
the ravine.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
I don't know what I was. The vehicle was facing northwest.
The vehicle had significant damage and appeared to have had
a front impact with the dirt and rolled before resting
on the passenger side. One piece of the jeep's black
removable roof was on the ground, partially wedged under the
front of the jeep. The driver's front window was shattered,
and I, the police detective writing this report, located glass

(35:41):
in the ground consistent with the jeep rolling one time.
There was also substantial damage to the lower front end
and damage to the top of the windshield and roof.
After some further investigation, detectives believe that Daniel's vehicle left
the dirt roadway where it ended south of his job
site near and open dirt area, and proceeded up the hillside.

(36:03):
It appeared that he drove over several bushes before ending
up in the ravine. The vehicle was still in drive
when it was found. I observed a pair of jeans
inside out, two brown work type boots, a faded orange
vest with the company logo, a T shirt, and two
socks which were inside out. I could see the outline
of what appeared to be a wallet in the pocket
of the jeans. I walked the same path to the vehicle,

(36:25):
which retacted had walked and did not observe any person
inside the vehicle. It was relatively clean the outside clean
on the outside, but there had been three or more
big rains in the area since Daniel went missing. There
was evidence of rain damage on the inside of the jeep,
and a hardhat inside was filled with rain water. I

(36:46):
located Daniel's Samsung Galaxy S ten cell phone, the vehicle
and apartment keys, and a backpack with Daniel's work laptop
and other documents inside. There were also other miscellaneous items
inside the like clothing, a basketball, unopened water bottles, and
other items. I did not observe any blood or other

(37:08):
evidence of an injury, despite the substantial damage to the vehicle.
I checked the area and did not observe any indication
that Daniel spent a considerable amount of time at the vehicle.
There were no empty water bottles or other items other
than Daniel's clothing in the area. There were no tracks
immediately surrounding the vehicle that weren't made by the caller
or detectives. The ravine was searched on the ground by

(37:29):
foot and in the air by the Department of Public
Safety Ranger helicopter, but they found no trace of Robinson,
and like the police report said, there was no blood
found in the car and there was no indication of
foul play. So very strange circumstance with the car. Fast
forward now to July thirty. First, Oh, Joe, do you
want to play a little snippet of that video? Yeah,

(37:52):
and then we'll just let it run in the via ground. Yeah,
this is well, here's some audio in the beginning. But
this guy went to all the sites the jobs where.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
He was last seen.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
Oh my name is Jeff Brunton. I go by jj
Ray on web Slues and just jeff a Z on
nig and pixels dot com. I thought, after so many
months of working on a Daniel Robinson case, I would
come out and show everybody pretty much the main sites

(38:23):
and the key points. Right now, I'm at Cactus and
Sun Valley Parkway and I'm facing west, and you can
kind of see just pretty much the general terrain. A
lot of kreosol bushes, small mesquites up in this area.

(38:44):
They get larger further down toward the Haciempa. I'm panning
south now, and basically about five miles south from here
is Tartesso Subdivision. And if we keep panning and we
go to the south east and we face east, these
are the White Tank Mountains. It's the most predominant feature

(39:08):
closest to the work site, the well site, and to
the wreck site. Further north, to the north east we're
facing is Festival development by Dell Webb. Directly north, you're
going to find a cap Central Arizona.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
The freeway.

Speaker 5 (39:35):
Yeah, we've got some Luke hair.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
I'm gonna turn the volume off because he's just going
to over explain the whole area. But yeah, for those
of you just listening. He's just spinning around in a
circle at that road Cactus Road rementioned off the freeway section,
and you heard there's some traffic, So it's not like
it's it's in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
This isn't where the seems like a mile south or
something like that. So the site you looked it up
is more remote.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, it's you have to get off the beaten path,
but it's not like they're it's weird because they're out
in the middle of nowhere, but there's a highway, yeah,
right within a couple miles. And he's in a car,
so it's not crazy like he drove twenty miles on
a dirt road to the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it's
only several miles off and there's decent traffic when he

(40:18):
was filming this video, So it's kind of weird. It's
like in between, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
It's desolate, but it's very highway that you can get
out of there. Yeah, like it.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Wouldn't getting lost would be hard in a car if
you're on the roads. It seems like this is my opinion,
but based on looking at this, yeah, it's desolate, but
there's dirt roads entirely.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I mean, you could get lost if you drove down
some of these dirt roads. They probably go for dozens
of miles. Yeah, you don't know where you're going. But yeah,
I agree, And that's why it is puzzling because Daniel
didn't drive towards Phoenix. He drove west deeper into the desert.
So I'm gonna go on with the timeline here. Like
I said, we're fastward into July thirty first of twenty
twenty one, and a human skull was found actually, but

(41:02):
they did further testing and determined that it was not
Daniels and the identity of whoever's skull it was still
remains unknown. So they found another missing person potentially.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
This is like the third or fourth episode where they
went searching for one person just found other people.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, it's a little spooky.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
So around the end of July of twenty twenty one,
the family hired a private investigator. His name was Jim McGrath.
He was a former police officer who specialized in accident investigations.
Based on GPS data, he discovered that the jeep had
gotten into multiple accidents after Daniel's disappearance, but before it

(41:44):
fell down the ravine. Evidence from the vehicle showed that
it crashed, the airbags were deployed, Then it drove another
eleven miles and was involved in another crash. The first
collision was four hours after Daniel went missing, while there
was also some paint transfer from the vehicle after the
first accident, though it's unknown whether it's unknown where the

(42:08):
vehicle was taken next. McGrath said that the airbags were deployed,
the ignition was turned on at least forty six more
times during the extra eleven miles driven so very erratic
behavior in a car. To recap that it, they discovered
that it got into multiple accidents before it ended up
in the ravine.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
And I wonder what the sensitivity is because if he
was off roading like where they recorded as accidents but
it was just.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
I would imagine it's probably they've probably engineered it to
be I really wish.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I saw it my jeep, yeah, because after I jumped
it off that jump, I'd love to see if that
was recorded as an accident, right, because everything in the
car hit the ceiling.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
My guesses there's sensors throughout the car that have to
record some kind of collision. But like we said, it
was then driven for another they're eleven miles and involved
in another crash, and the first collision, like I said,
it only happened four hours after Daniel went missing. Something
strange happened. It is now. Oh, so that is kind

(43:14):
of the end of the timeline. His remains haven't been found,
and very strange circumstances around his jeep being found. And then,
like we said, January seventh of twenty twenty three, just
a few days ago. We're recording this. On January tenth
of twenty twenty three, human Reigns were found by a
Facebook user named Penny Buffington. I put the picture in

(43:37):
the drive, but I wouldn't show it right now. A
lot of people online, some of the news organizations showed
it and people got pretty upset.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
That's not even related to the case. Yeah, technically if
they already determined it's not him.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Yeah, so I would say, you know, somebody's parents or brother, sister,
We're not gonna show it. If you really want to
go see it. It's some of the major news channels
out of Arizona have it on their website, so you
can do that on your own time if you so choose.
The father has come out and said that these aren't
daniels remains, and I believe he's not basing this on

(44:14):
probably DNA evidence yet because there's no way that's been conducted.
Based on what was found in Daniel's car. It sounds
like he stripped his clothing off, and it sounds like
the remains that were just found had clothing either on
the remains or around where the bones were found.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, back up on that. There's a nice still of
the let a playthrough.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
We you will find out at some point they will
they'll get those bones analyzed and we'll know.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, we can do an update.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
But yeah, so we'll update everyone. So before Joe and
I get into theories. Oh yeah, so yeah, that's a
major quite a leg and you can clearly see that
it got in accidents before going into that revine.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Unless it was roll.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Well the black box said it got into multiple accidents.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Well that's where That's where I'm wondering. So I'm gonna
do just because this is funny. Here is.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
So?

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Is that an accident? Hold on, let's let's get audio.
Let me restart. I restarted here we go, ready, because
you can hear it it slammed down and everything, like,
I was worried, stuff broken, and I'm wondering if that
would record as an accident because I.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Got I got quite a bit of air on that
tear bag stint deploy.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
I feel like good point if that was like the precursor, yeah,
or to work. So I just wanted to show me.
I just love I want like twenty thousand people to
know I did that in the jeep. That's really why.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Yeah don't yeah, you owned it.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Wink wink, Yes, you're not supposed to say the wink wink.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
So invest instigators believe something triggered Robinson to go into
the desert where he stripped off and wandered away from
his car, but Jeff McGrath said that theory made no sense.
He goes on to quote, if you're delirious and ripped
off all your clothes and wandered into the desert, you
wouldn't stick one of your shoes under the car. My

(46:18):
personal theory is that someone deliberately wrecked that vehicle out there.
McGrath believes Robinson was upset about the rejection of a
woman and went on an all night video game binge.
So the Buckeye police reports.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Well, what's the basis for that? Okay? I was like,
that's a very specific thing to say, and I haven't
heard anything so far that would yes.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
A Buckeye police report states that Daniel met a woman
named Caitlin while he was making deliveries for Instacart and
dropped off in order for her home. Caitlyn said she
and her friend were drunk and invited Robinson inside, and
they later exchanged numbers. Within a week, he arrived at
her house unannounced and began signing her text saying I
couldn't stop thinking about you and I you. She tried

(47:01):
to rebuff him by saying, honestly, you showing up at
my house unannounced made me extremely uncomfortable. I don't see
us hanging out anytime soon. The next day he turned
up at her house again. He wrote do you hate me?
Daniel replied, I don't hate you, but please leave me alone.
That's Caitlin replied in a text. He took fifteen hours

(47:21):
to respond with his final text to her. Eighteen hours
after After that final text, he disappeared. McGrath said of
the events after he drove off, at that point, I
think somebody not a good person found him. I can't
imagine what they did with him, but I believe his
vehicle was crashed a couple of times and then its
final arrest was at the bottom of the ravine. McGrath

(47:43):
found another black Nike sack three miles away in the desert.
He cannot explain it, but it is another reason he
believes there is more to this case than meets the eye.
McGrath and Daniel's family believed the Buckeye Police did not
carry out a thorough investigation into Robinson's mysterious disappearance. They
pointed out that Daniel's close possessions and car were handed

(48:04):
over to his father as soon as he arrived in Arizona. However,
Robinson's brother Roger, believes police are doing what they can
to find him now, but he fears it's too little,
too late. Had they been quick about it in the beginning,
we wouldn't be here three months later, still searching for
my brother and still looking for answers. So that is

(48:25):
the case of Daniel Robinson. Okay, so what do you
think happened?

Speaker 2 (48:33):
This is making me remember of the last time we
had someone just run off into the desert. Terrence, Yeah,
that was North Though, wasn't that? That wasn't isn't that
Washington State?

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Wyoming?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Wyoming?

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Oh yeah, set for a discovery challenge.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Okay, so that was so I immediately I'm trying to
think of some reasonable theories and then some off the
deep end theories.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Yeah, reasonable theory.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Where did it say he grew up.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Columbia, South Carolina?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
So reasonable? They he's working the desert. It's only a
second day. Though only a second day. But he went
out met a girl apparently in the area. Well he
out drinking, met is a okay, but regardless, he's out partying,
maybe drinking. Not saying that's a bad thing, but imagine
being hungover and working the desert.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Fun, It wouldn't be fun. It could make you delirious.
It could make you make stupid decisions. So he you know,
it was an unseasonably cool days as far as deserts go.
And if he's like in the throes of some heartbreak
because he wants to meet this girl and she's rejecting him, Like,
you combine all that stuff and I think it's hard
for I'll say us to realize because I don't think

(49:40):
we've ever overreacted to a girl. Before I knew you
through college, we never had. But you know in college
when you'd meet the dudes who would fall apart over
a girl would literally go a little crazy.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Look it throughout history in general. But I'm just saying
young men men have started wars over women.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yes, but I'm just saying we've all know own dudes
who kind of lost it temporarily for a few days.
So if he's in the middle of this getting rejected,
not feeling secure, maybe hungover. And again I'm this is
all speculation. I'm making stuff up here because I'm just
trying to make sense.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Maybe he had an undiagnosed psychological issue that nobody about.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
He's under stressed, working in hot conditions, and just maybe
he's like, I'm gonna go for a drive and I
tell him. Maybe he's completely delirious and goes and just
drives off and he's smashing around in the desert like
just kind of driving violently.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, maybe he just got angry and he just went
one hundred miles an hour down into it road and
lost it. Yeah, And I think that it doesn't explain
the multiple crashes. It does explain the multiple crashes or
where he went yeah, or did he crash. Well, actually
that kind of does, because we crashed like that. Looking
at the car, I'm.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Gonna I'm not sharing my screen anymore, so I'll pull
that back up. I mean, it's wedged in there pretty crazily.
So if he just climbed out of there, maybe he
was hot and he's like, I'm gonna take my clothes
off and go off from the desert. Maybe he was
dehydrated at this point and was starting to think making
bad decisions and he's like the fact that he.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Found his sock three miles away from the crash site
leads me to think he and do they know it
was his?

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Though?

Speaker 2 (51:11):
No, see that's where Yeah, but it was a Nike sock.
It was Nike sock, and who else was out there
in that spot? So it could be. But again, it's
just that to me is like a reasonable explanation what
could have happened. That's a lot of what ifs to
come together to make that happen. More off the deep end,
I immediately started looking up at there's the vortices in
that area. Vile vortices. Yeah, I remember those, so I

(51:35):
know in Sedona they claim that there's that stuff there
there's the energy that makes you think weird. And I've
had friends I won't say their names because they are normal.
I'll say normal people, like not constantly into that type
of stuff. That they went to an area in Arizona.
I don't remember where, yeah, but they're vacationing there and

(51:56):
they were doing side by side where you do the
UTVs and you drive into stuff. And they both said
when they got to certain areas, they got really angry,
like they were having a great time and they started
getting mad. And they were listening to our show and
they were listening to one where they started to talk
about vilvordices because they called me like, oh my god,

(52:17):
like I don't believe in this stuff, but I was
in that area where you guys said there was one
and we felt weird. Yeah, And they were still in
the area and they like locals were like, oh yeah, yeah,
you know how locals are we there's some cool thing
in your area. So again, take that for what you
want to take it to me, that's the off the
deep end of he was affected by a vile vortocy

(52:37):
or something.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
I like the off the deep end. Yeah, for my
off the deep end, I'm gonna stick with that.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, ooh, you're on the off the deep end trains.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
I think the more logical thing is, obviously his behavior
with this woman he had just met is not normal.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah, she's obviously rebuffing him and he's not getting it.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
He's still showing up, so obviously he has something going
on there. I think maybe other things in his life
were going on at the time that people weren't aware
of that, and this kind of thing with this woman
just finally he snapped and he left the job site.
We don't know what he did before the car crash,

(53:15):
but he got into multiple accidents, so he must have been.
Sometimes if you get delirious with rage, it causes you
to not think clearly.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
That's where I've never had that happen, No, but I've
seen it firsthand. It happens people that start doing weird
crap and you're like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
That combines us combine a man's obsession with a woman,
which like Joe and I have talked about, we've seen
with friends in our lives. But there's ample evidence throughout
history of men doing incredible.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Whole different Bible because of that, James Bible exists because.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Stupid of men throughout the history of time have done
incredibly stupid things over women, the pursuit of women. And
I'm trying to think of the ruler of Rome that
basically started a war over Clepatra. Yeah, I mean there's
I'm sure there's medieval stories and won't go any up,
but it so combined. Maybe that obsession he had with

(54:13):
this woman he had just met with, maybe just this
rage that just came over him and he would cause
you to be have impaired driving if sure. So maybe
he was just flying down the road, hitting stuff and
smashing stuff and then lost control went up over this ring.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
So even if he wasn't like yeah, I mean, I
think what happened is he probably was dehydrated and he
hit a bunch of stuff in his car, lost control,
went over this ridge, landing the ravine, probably hit his
head hard enough to cause damage but not draw blood.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
If you hit your head really hard on the steering, yeah, Ryan,
you're not gonna bleed. Yeah, rings your bell though, But
probably if you're already dehydrated and you get a bad concussion,
he is probably just in a very very delirious state
of mind at that point, which would maybe for some
reason he decided to strip his clothes off and walk
into the desert. And my guess is he just kept

(55:11):
walking and they had a lot of heavy rains. Perhaps
he walked into an area that you know out in
the desert when it rains, you can get flash floods
like an instant, and maybe his remains were washed away
in one of the flash floods.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yes, George Slamb Yeah, talks about that he's a pio
of Joshua tree.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
So like in a heavy rain, this ravine probably be
filled with water. So I think the most logical explanation
is he injured his head in this crash and he
was probably already dehydrated. He was filled with rage, just
in a delirious state he walked off into the desert.
So come to the elements, And then.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
I wonder if that delirium would be similar to when
you have what's the cold thing? I am off did?
I can't think hypo or hyper hypothermia, because I've experienced
that firsthand with people that's hiking with. I'm sure I
have told us on the show, but I'll repeat it.
When I was doing Long's Peak with three other guys,
I was staying back with one guy to wait for
someone who's behind in the trail as a storm hit,

(56:09):
so because we didn't want to leave them in whiteout
conditions while two other guys continued on, so we stayed paired.
We followed our rules, and they were going to go
set up the camp ahead of us, and it was raining,
like sleeping, so you're getting wet, and it started getting
real cold. And when we started coming up around this bend,
they're twenty minutes ahead of us. They were walking back

(56:30):
and they were dressed completely differently, and we literally like,
and these are guys have known forever, they're great hikers.
They know what they're doing. And I'm like, where are
you guys going, Like they should have been at camp.
And they're like, we're going back to the car because
our clothes are wet. We're five hours into a hike.
We're nowhere near the car. And what they did was
we got them warmed up, and they told us they realized,

(56:51):
like when they're warm up, they're remembering the decisions they
were making. They were soaking wet, and they were at
the campsite. Instead of pitching the tent, they took the
dry clothes out of their bags in the rain, took
off their wet clothes and put on their dry clothes,
which then got wet. Yeah, instead of setting up the
tent and then because those clothes got wet, they were
gonna hike out. Yeah it's in four hours. Yea. And

(57:14):
they would have Yes, they would have gone. And and
they're like, I don't know why I did that. Ye Like,
they're they've hiked with me a ton of times and
they literally could not make that. We are in altitude,
they're in hypothermia. They're making horrible decisions, like we were like, nope,
come with me, like I remember forcing him. They're just
kind of like wandering aimlessly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
So honestly, I think I I don't know about the
foul play thing. I think it's more simple than that.
I think it's a combination of he was dehydrated. Yeah,
maybe he was, Yeah, dehydrated in a desert. That's going
to dehydrate even more. He was clearly in a bad accident,
multiple bad accidents. Yeah, probably has a head injury, no

(57:56):
blood so not Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
They said his seatbelt was on, so it doesn't even
getting hit in the face with the air bags, like
getting punched. Yeah, so I mean, I know that.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Side of his head on the the side on a rollover.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, the contents of your car will do more damage
to you than Yeah, he could have got had with
his laptop, his work laptop. All the stuff in there
becomes violent projectiles.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
So just because there's no blood, you can't assume that
he didn't suffer a serious head injury. Really bad concussion
combined with dehydration would cause him to just be delirious.
And I think he walked off into the desert and
then with the heavy rains they're having, his remains were
washed out of the search area. They're probably I don't
even think they.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Have to wash out. Think of Paul Miller's case, or
he was found pretty dang close to the trail. Well
what a year two years later almost, and they searched thoroughly,
and it's based on that image from seeing the car
from above. It's hard to find stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
And I'll just say I did view that image of
the skeleton that was found a couple of days ago,
and to what you're saying, the skeleton was caked in mud,
so it looked like, oh, okay, it had been it
had been moved, not necessarily been moved, but like muddy
water had been flowing by it. Okay, And you can
just imagine if the remains were in a flash flood

(59:09):
or had any muddy sand you could that would make
it even harder for searchers to find the remains.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
I turned the screen off, so I'm gonna go look, Okay,
I'm not sharing it. Did I put it out?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yeah, I just I didn't open it. Yeah, that's not okay.
That would be tough, definitely hard to see from air,
oh one hundred percent. And you would I'm living out here,
and like if it was the back of it, it
would look like a rock.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
You would literally have to walk right by.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I can't tell that that is what that is.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Yeah, you'd have to walk right by it to see it.
And for anyone listening or watching, we're not actually showing
the image just out of respect, but I just want
to make the point that, yeah, that it would be
so hard. The difficulty to find remains that have been
exposed to rains in this type of environment would make
it really hard. So that that's my theory. I do

(01:00:01):
like the off the deep end wild over disease. I've
never experienced something like that. But I've read lots of stories.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I would love to hear the coworker, Yeah, given interview
to get an idea what type of guy is not
saying it's his fault. Sure, but those but the dudes
that work in that kind of situation are usually hard dudes. Yeah,
they're probably like if he's all like complaining about a
girl whatever, he's like probably not being nice to him. Yeah,
maybe he's like, you just get back to work, you know,

(01:00:28):
like at this if he's being like aggressive, maybe that
tipped him over the edge. Again, not saying it's his fault. Yeah,
it could have been like all the things and the
straw that broke hands back to the guy's kind of
not nice to him on the job site, And I'm
just thinking I've worked on job sites with doing concrete
and roofs and stuff. Those guys aren't nice, but that's
how they're built. Yeah, they'll call your names incredibly, like, hey,
what'd you give me? That idiot? Like like, there's not nice.

(01:00:49):
So if he's like in all these weird states and
then there's some dude jar like jeering him a little bit, yeah,
he's probably screw this crap and he drives off yeah,
we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Yeah, we won't know, but so another puzzling case. But
depending on what happens with this new skeleton that was discovered,
we may have closure in this case. So we'll keep
you guys updated with that. For SHEP you posted.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
All right, Well, thanks again for tuning into our show.
We appreciate all of you for listening and sharing locations
unknown with your friends and family. Be sure to like
and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, where
you can find the videos for each of these episodes. Also,
if you'd like to support the show monetarily, please visit
our website or our Facebook store and buy some of

(01:01:32):
our cool swag. Additionally, you can subscribe to our patron
account on YouTube subscriptions and on Apple subscriptions, where you'll
have access to special events additional shows for paid customers only.
And Lastly, when enjoying the beauty of nature, whether backpacking, camping,
or simply taking a walk, always remember to leave no trace.

(01:01:53):
Thanks and we will see you all next time.

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
To the to the, to the, to them, to look
to them, to the lelo to the to them, to
them
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