Mount Washington Cold Cases

Episode Transcript
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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 world and try to piece together what happened. And
you are listening to Locations Unknown. What's up, everybody, and

(00:55):
welcome back to another episode of Locations Unknown. I'm your
co host to Joe Erado, and with me as always
is the guy who built the hospital he was born in.
Oh wow, Mike vander Bogart.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thank you, Joe, And that is some pretty impressive feat to.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, you're a pretty impressive guy.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you, Joe, and thank you to all of our
amazing listeners for tuning in. Just a couple of updates
before we get go in So New Patreon shoutouts to
Colleen Torgensen Torgersen, Dusty Lintagg, Mary Lawler, Kaylee Caitlin, Dan Wallace,
and Laurie Oberholtzer.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
So, Dusty Lindtagg, sounds like something you find in your dryer, Yeah, Dustin,
after trying. Sorry Tank, Sorry, and.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
We have an episode suggestion shout out to so thank
you to Erica Bell.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Thank you Erica.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
She messaged us on Instagram about a case in New Hampshire.
And then I found a few more cases and we're
doing a cold case episode.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Boom boom.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
If you want to call the show, you can call
two O eight three nine one six nine one three.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You can text it. We should do voicemail show next,
we should. We should, So everyone listen, let's plan on that. So, yeah,
call in now. We're gonna have a.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Lot hopefully call in now, and the funnier or meaner,
the more.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Likely it will be. Yeah, we will play all of it. Yeah,
we'll play all of it. And so yeah, people keep
writing negative comments on Apple. It's like, no, call us
and tell us and tell us, give us a chance
to respond.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
At least maybe one of us will actually answer too.
I'll early throw you off. That would be fantastic, That
would be funny. If you want to support the show,
you can support us through Patreon, YouTube membership's premium subscriptions
on Apple Spreaker. We also have some great shows on
the Unknown Media Network, so Peanut and Butter and Mountain Podcast,

(02:42):
Off the Trails, the Weirdos we know who runs this park,
and Crime off the Grid, and we are going to
be doing in a show with Crime off the Grid.
Here we're recording it next Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Next Wednesday. Yeah, that's gonna be a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It'll be on their feed, So we'll let you know
when that's live.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
And we're going to cross post that eventually. I don't know,
maybe we should. It is our network. Yeah, we want
to guess. I guess we can do.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
And you'll notice we're we're making progress on the studio.
We're actually not in the studio out in the woods.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Believe it or not. It's dusk. That's why the echo's
gone outside now the sun's setting.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Got that that yellow glow in the sky some trees
behind us.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, two different types of flora, yet we're in the
same location.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes, so we have more work to do on it,
but we're getting close.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Just every episode, there's any more plants, until it's just
plants everywhere.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Till all you see is our fate like me, it's
just our face and just plants around.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Us, just on the desk, like everywhere. That would be
kind of funny, a joke. We should add one plant
for the next one hundred episodes, just one hundred plants.
So let's do that anyway. Anyway, all right, everybody, let's
gear up and get out to explore locations unknown. Towering

(04:14):
at over six thousand feet in the White Mountains, Mount Washington,
home to world record two hundred and thirty one mile
prour winds and brutal weather, draws millions with his historic
auto road, rare alpine plants and extreme spring skiing, while
most enjoy its trails and epic views. Some Vanish forever

(04:35):
join us this week for another installment of National Forest
cold Cases as we explore Mount Washington in New Hampshire's
White Mountain National Forest. So, although we're covering a lot

(05:04):
of cold cases, we're going to just cover the location
profile from the perspective of the most recent disappearance in
twenty nineteen. So the name of the location is the
White Mountain National Forest. It's roughly seven hundred and fifty
thousand acres, or the same size as Rocky Mountain National
Park and Great Smoky Mountain National Park combined. It's a
big one. It is a big one. The sub location

(05:26):
is the Mount Washington Corridor at or immediately above the
Pickham Notch is in New Hampshire and it was established
in nineteen eighteen. The National Forest is estimated to get
six million visitors per year, and it, as we said
in the beginning, it has world record winds. So nineteen
thirty four, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded a surface wind

(05:48):
speed of two hundred and thirty one miles per hour,
or for our friends overseas or our hat, three hundred
and seventy two kilometers per hour, the highest reliably measured
wind on Earth at the time. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
USA number one baby at home of the world's worst weather,
USA number one baby. Due to its position at the

(06:10):
convergence of storm tracks from the Atlantic, Great Lakes and Arctic,
the mountain often experiences hurricane force winds, whiteouts, and extreme
cold even in the summer. I think we posted a
video once of somebody trying to like, yeah, put a
flag out, and it's like a thirteen foot snow drift
and like he can barely move.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I've seen various videos on YouTube of people at the
observatory during high winds trying doing like this is how
fast it'll blow until it knocks a six foot person down. Yeah,
and yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
So Mount Washington, out of Road opened in eighteen sixty one.
It is the oldest man made tourist traction. In the US,
visitors can drive the steep, narrow road to the summit.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, there's a high fatality rate. So
Mount Washington and the President Range are among the deadliest
SAE small mountain ranges in the world, with over one

(07:04):
hundred and sixty recorded fatalities from falls, hypothermia, avalanches, and
weather exposure. There are rare plants there so in the
alpine zone. It hosts Arctic alpine plant species found nowhere
else in New England spring skiing mecca, so the Tuckerman
Ravine is famous for extreme spring skiing, with slopes reaching
fifty five degrees. Thousands flock there each April for backcountry skiing,

(07:27):
even as avalanches remain a major hazard. So your big skier,
it's fifty five degrees, like, just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I'm trying to picture in my head how steep that is.
But yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
It sounds like it is. Yeah, otherwise they wouldn't say it.
I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Last time I did skiin in an alpine place was Breckenridge,
and I can't remember the slope on one of the
runs we did, but it was right before I started
going down and I was having second thoughts, like after
it was too late. Yeah, you're all right up there,
you have to go down? How else do you get down?
I don't cry goun until.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Like get you. Well, you could go down on your
butt and just that's what I would do. Look pathetic,
you know what, I like to live the whole way down.
I was just like white knuckle in it. So the
first ascent in sixteen forty two, Darby Field, an English settler,
is credited with the first wreck recorded European ascent, guided

(08:21):
by local Native Americans. So the first European the natives
are like, yeah, we've been up. We do this every day.
We do this every day. It's like people that do everest.
They have all their oxygen bottles and they have their porters.
They're like, yeah, we've been.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
And the surface there do it like twenty times a year. Yeah, yeah,
with no oxygen and carrying everybody else's stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, they're filming. Yeah. The climate. So when Sue went
missing in March twenty nineteen, Mount Washington was in full
winter alpine conditions, so bitter cold, deep snow, high avalanche risk,
hurricane force winds, and sudden whiteouts even short distances from
Pinkham Notch to the summit meant a dramatic and dangerous
change in climate.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
I will just say I probably should have mentioned the
subject of our third The third subject in this cold
case episode is Sue. If anyone's hearing this, like, who
is that? Well, we did say it was on the
most recent case in the beginning we're starting, we're going old.
I assumed I shouldn't assume though. Yes, the region has
humid continental climate thanks to our friends over the Coping

(09:19):
Climate classification system, with long cold winters and short mild summers.
The highest elevation is Mount Washington at six two and
eighty eight feet. It creates the alpine Subarctic environment drastically
different from the lower values. Wind, as we mentioned, is
very high, so Mount Washington business notorious for the extreme winds,
often exceeding sixty to eighty miles per hour in the winter.

(09:41):
So that's like they're standard, which is just insane. Yes,
I was just in Illinois when a sixty million hour
wind hit and like trees were ripped out the home
depot parking lot. You know they have the sheds on display. Yeah,
they're all gone all over the road.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, as we said. The world record surface wind speed
was two hundred and thirty one miles an hour, recorded
in nineteen thirty four. Snowfall is heavy and persistent with
get this, two hundred to three hundred plus inches per
year on higher slopes. That's wild. That is wild, deep
snowpack lingers into late spring, especially in ravines like Tuckerman

(10:17):
and Huntington. So that's like you always hear like snow
drifts getting big. Yeah, So what are the snow drifts
like if you have three hundred plus inches of snow,
I don't know, they gotta be more. It's gotta be
more and then less in the other place because that's
where it came from. Yeah, So visibility frequent fog, blowing
snow and whiteouts reduce visibility to near zero. And it

(10:38):
sounds like that's happening a lot with that high wind.
Pinkham Notch visitors centers at twenty thirty two feet. It
has milder conditions, so the March temperatures are often in
the twenties and thirties. The Mount Washington Summit in March,
averages run zero to fifteen degrees fahrenheit, with extreme wind
chills reaching negative forty or colder.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, in March is the timeframe one this gentleman went missing.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Sue, that's sou. When he went missing in March twenty nineteen,
Mount Washington was in full winter alpine as we said,
So all of those things are happening. White Out's hurricane
force winds, the cold, the deep snow, the avalanche risk.
Even short distances from Pinkham Notch to the summit Mendo
dramatic and dangerous change in climate.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
You have to be very experienced and comfortable in cold
hiking to be able to do something like this.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well, they're saying the terrain that he was in, essentially
around Mount Washington is a mix of steep glacial ravines,
narrow alpine ridges, and heavily forested approaches in winter conditions.
Is highly technical, avalanche prone, and extremely difficult to navigate
without mountaineering gear. So this environment has been the site
of many fatal accidents and is considered one of the

(11:46):
most dangerous small mountain ranges in the world.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Not something you start as your first hike, so.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Absolutely not so. Mount Washington, as we said, was at
sixty two hundred feet. It's the highest peak in the
northeast US, so that's probably why so many people are
drawn there and climb the tallest mountain. The surrounding terrain
is part of the Presidential Range, characterized by steep glacial creeks,
exposed alpine ridges, and deep ravines.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
And I look this up on Google because I was
thinking they don't have peaks named after every president.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Well they do. They do.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, So that's why it's the Presidential Range.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
There you go. Terrain rapidly shifts from dense hardwood and
conifer forests at lower elevations to Crumbholtz stunted spruce fir
and alpine tundra above forty five hundred feet so pinkup notch.
The trailheads at two thousand feet relatively gentle valley bottom,
but quickly rising slopes. So Tuckerman Ravine glacial creek. I
always say that word wrong. That's the word I say

(12:44):
wrong creek. I think it's creek, krek c I r que,
kirk well whatever, with very steep headwalls forty to fifty
five degree slopes, avalanche prone in winter in spring, Huntington
Ravine is even steeper than Tuckerman, with near vertical rock
faces and technical climbing terrain also avalanche prone. Jeez, you'd
be bolted to a wall and just snow comes down,

(13:05):
and yeah, this just sounds I mean, I'm not gonna
go there. No, we definitely of hiking and I'm going there.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
I can tell you I'm not experienced enough to hike
something like this.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Honestly, we usually say, oh, this sounds amazing hard, but
I'd love to hike it.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
I don't want to hike. I wouldn't want to go
did it, just because like it sounds like even if
you're the best, you can just have an accident. Yeah,
so difficult. Lionhead boots, spur ridges their narrow alpine ridges
used as winter routes to avoid avalanche zones, but fully
exposed to winds and white outs. So if you avoid
the avalanches, you're getting blasted by the wind. Just sand blasted. Yes,
the summit amount washing it. If you can imagine, it's

(13:45):
just exposed alpine tundra with almost no natural cover, littered
with talis ice and rhyme formations. M Yeah, just fun.
I had to climb over those when I did kill
them in Jarrow because the high wind's up there and
they still had a lot of the snowpack and it's
just super sharp. Yeah, you've to go like through lanes.
So types of danger. What do you think steep elevation

(14:06):
gains from pink of notch to summit forty two thousand
vertical feet in less than four miles, geese, that's crazy,
that's insane. Avalanches and rock fall. So if the snow
doesn't kill you, the rocks will. Ravines are avalanche shoots.
In the winter, rocks can loosen and freeze and thaw
cycles ice and snowfields, so trails above the tree line

(14:27):
are often buried or impassable in march, so that creates
a navigation difficulty. Carrens and blazes are buried in the snow.
Disorientation in the fog or white outs is common, and
there's limited escape routes. So if you find yourself stuck
and you want a white knucklet as you say, Mike,
too bad. Once committed into the ravine or gully, retreat
can be impossible without climbing gear. Avalanches, as we said,

(14:49):
Tuckerman Ravine and Huntington Ravine are avalanche prone through the
winter and spring. And then even if you thought you
knew the conditions, before you went out. Guess what They
rapidly change on you. They change from calm to sunny
to whiteouts, some blizzards within minutes. And then you can't retreat.
And then an avalanche is on you, and then the
wind's knocking you over. And if that didn't get you
a rock, well, yeah, and then there's cold exposure. If

(15:11):
you survive all of that, it's freezing, you can get
frostbite under ten minutes during windy, sub zero conditions. And
then lastly, if none of that gets here, there's black bear,
moose and coyotes. Yeah, so they're just waiting at the bottom.
I don't even have to hunt.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
I think if anyone listening has summited Mount Washington, especially
in the winter, I think, right now, just give yourself
a pat on the back.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, car number, let's sem an interview. I feel like
anybody that's done that, yeah, is gonna be worthy of
interviewing or at.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
A minimum, call and leave a voicemail about your experience
summiting Mount Washington in the winter because it sounds epic. Yeah,
and I can't imagine very many people do it.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
I want to live vicariously through that, yeah, because I'm
not going to that is wild, So I like, I mean,
I like the mountains. But while you're doing that, I'm
going to go to the Caribbean. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
I like hiking in alpine conditions, and I wanted to
be challenging, but part of it is also a vacation. Yes,
so I do want to enjoy myself.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Challenging but not deadly. Yes. All right, let's get into
the character profiles for some of these cases.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
All right, So we are going to go from old
to new. So we've got a really old case here.
Our first name is John M. Keenan. So his estimated
birth not quite sure it was eighteen ninety three or
eighteen ninety four, because he was age eighteen in nineteen twelve.
He went missing on September eighteenth of nineteen twelve, and

(16:40):
shockingly it was during a white out near the summit
at ten am. So he was a male, like I said,
eighteen descriptions of him. Because the case is so old,
we have very little detail about this gentleman. But witness
Howard Lightfoot described a young man about twenty with a
sit a slightly seating chin, and he knows a bit

(17:02):
larger than average, and he said he was drooling at
the mouth, which was likely because he was cold and wet,
and he did not appear bright looking. So that was
a description of him at when the search was going on.
People are just a little more cruel back then, I think.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
And road inspectors that saw him noted that he had
a vacant expression and arm waving. So this case is
really interesting. We'll get into the timeline here in a second.
Well you'll see what I'm talking about. But there were
so many different chances he could have been rescued, but wasn't.
Like I said, we don't know his height, weight, hair, eyes,

(17:39):
or anything else about him. Really. He was reported to
be afraid of darkness and easily frightened by animals in
woodland hazards, and they described him as fresh faced and
newly in the workforce.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Sounds like he didn't like being outside.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, and these people weren't very nice when they described him.
He's clothing and gear last scene, and so at the
time of his disappearance, he was working on a survey crew.
He had a coat, hat, and he was carrying a
backflag whatever that was. I should have looked that up
in probably a flag on his back.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
I guess.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Oh, yeah, they probably told him like, go stand in
that spot, and so that's what he's wearing. He really
didn't have any survival gear with him because he wasn't
out there hiking. He was actually working. And at one
point he was sighted on the twentieth along the Pinkham
and Glenn Road. He had a pink and white striped

(18:34):
shirt on with attached cuffs. Cuff links were lost. He
had no coat or undershirt despite the bad weather, but
he did have fashionable street shoes. So I love descriptions
from this time period. Fashionable street street shoes. Yeah, that
was like their way of telling how like what this
unprepared he was for being out there. Yeah. So personality,

(18:56):
like I said, he was described as very timid in
the woods and fresh faced, and he was new to
rough field work and he was teased by the crew apparently.
And medical issues none documented prior to the incident, but
he was seen at one point incoherent and drooling, and
this obviously is consistent with possible exposure or head injury.

(19:20):
Occupation so he had recently finished high school in Charleston, Massachusetts.
He worked as an elevator operator. Those were a thing.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Once I mean, that was the No.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
There used to be people stand in the elevator all
day and push the button for you or make it
go up and down. It's kind of funny. But then
he joined the Boston and Marine Linked survey crew on
Mount Washington in mid September of nineteen twelve. Experience in
the wilderness obviously very limited. This was pretty much the

(19:55):
first time in his life he had been above the timberline,
and he was unfamiliar with how the trails were marked
or anything about being out there. Obviously, not really any
training on what to do if you get lost, experience
in that location. So this was his first day at
the COG base and he was sent up with surveyors
on the eighteenth and he was last seen on the

(20:16):
south side of the summit cone. Yeah as green as
you can be, so jumping right into the timeline.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
You know what that reminded me of when you said that,
But that was the elevator. It was the John Mulaney.
I was thinking, who was John Mulaney When they stand up?
He said, I once was on the phone with Blockbuster Video,
which is a very old fashioned sentence that.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Is, yeah, all right, go on, okay, yep, yep. Continue continue.
So it is oh real quick. I saw a video online.
So you grew up in the nineties like I did.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
I did. There is a we're a similar age.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yes, there's a museum I believe out in Denver that
is just for the nineties. So it has everything from
the nineties in like a museum setting. They have a
real life Blockbuster. They have the set of friends.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
They've got all like the different video games and technology
from the nineties.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
They have in a safe, a pristine, like one hundred
percent perfect Blockbuster membership card. Oh to you really his
It was like it's almost it's like I never used it.
Why do you still have it? I saved it for
some reason, and then I thought, I was like, this
is great because it's like perfectly laminated. It's like not peeling.
It's not this color or anything like that's gonna be
worth something. Probably never, but yeah, probably never. But I

(21:29):
really like looking at it.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Sometimes you should donate it to that museum.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Maybe we'll have it be like a giveaway in the show. Yeah,
there you go. Or maybe I'll keep it because I
like looking at it.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
We'll frame it put in the studio.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Actually, I could put it in the museum and be
like donated generously from locations unknown.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Big tax right off, Yeah, all right, we got way
off track. Back to the timeline. So it's summer nineteen eleven,
nineteen twelve. So the reason why this gentleman was even
on the mountain was because he worked for a company
called Boston and Maine are Are under Charles S. Mellon,
and they were serving a bold plan for an electric

(22:05):
trolley line to the Summer and a new Summit hotel.
So a twenty one man survey crew led by HS
Jewel worked around the Summit Cone and West slopes. The
work began on July fourth, nineteen eleven, and continued to
the next summer. So obviously, mister Keenan eighteen from Charleston, Massachusetts,
like I said, had just finished high school, and he

(22:26):
had briefly worked as an elevator operator, and he joined
this team in mid September. So it's now Friday, September thirteenth,
nineteen twelve. This is the first day on the job
for this gentleman, and he's at the base of COG.
He was assigned odd jobs near the COG base. He
was noted for wearing, like I said, fashionable street shoes.
They are really caught up on that, and it's like.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
That's so wild. There's like he always had fashionable street shoes.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, John, So it keeps coming up in the research
I did, and he had a pink and white striped
shirt and these were details later confirmed by witnesses. This song,
it's now Wednesday, September eighteenth of nineteen twelve. Morning conditions
on the Summit Cone. It was overcast, minus forty degrees fahrenheit. Jeez,

(23:14):
fifty mile per hour winds. The survey party working on
the south side of the Summit Cone near the Allen
ormsby Marker, and they were facing the lakes of the clouds.
So that is wild conditions. Yeah, fifty mili hours winds
nineteen twelve. That's not with modern clothing technology.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, that's cold. Yeah, that's no point.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
So Keenan's role that morning, he was a backflag man.
He was station one hundred feet from the transit. In
around ten am, a sudden cloud slash whiteout rolled in
and when it thinned, he was gone. So he was
there and then this quick whiteout came in and when
it blew through, no one could find him. The crew

(23:58):
waited around for about thirty minutes. They were calling for him.
They fired guns to signal for him. One guy even
telephoned the base from the summit. So no no luck
finding him. So they did initiate an immediate response later
in the day. In that evening and they searched until nightfall.
They didn't find any sign of him. They rang a

(24:19):
summit bell steadily all night. A steam plant whistle at
the COG base sounded every minute, probably for all the
people trying to sleep that night. That's it's a lot
of noise, but you would think you would hear, you know.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, they're trying to help guide him back.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, And lanterns were strung around the base camp by
the in case he had merged, and at one point
the B and mhqu wired back. Spare no expense, find
the boy, so that's good.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, they wanted to find the fashionable street shoes. Yeah,
find the boy.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's now Thursday, September nineteenth of nineteen twelve. Jewel led surveyors,
cog crews and staff among the clouds to sweep the
alpine zone. So they were grouping through dense clouds above
the Timberline, but no trace was fond of them. So
it's Friday, September twentieth of nineteen twelve.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
And let me just read that again.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
So jewel led surveyors, cog crews and staff. It must
be in the clouds. So obviously the clouds were rolling
over the mountain. Yes, I just they were among the clouds. Yeah,
I had I didn't write that properly.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
That's probably how they wrote it back then. Yeah, they
were among the cloud searching far and wide in the
radio voice, exactly, that's what That's how they talk, sweeping
the alpine zone, gropping through dense clouds above Timberline. No
trace was found. Yeah, that's exactly what. That's how they
were probably doing it.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, Friday, September twentieth, nineteen twelve. So the valleys this
day enjoyed sunny, warm weather, while fog and ice continued
on the heights. So fog glazed rocks with ice by
Friday eleven am. So this was the Pinkham Notch Road
near Darby Field. Fire Ward and Briggs encountered a disoriented.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
You guys can't see this if you're listening, but my
mouth is just floored. That's open he did it. I
know I'm getting because we're outside. Yeah, we're outside air,
breathing in this fresh air.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
I love it. We got to record outside more often.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yes, we do. What park are we in? Don't ask
dumb question?

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:30):
So Milwaukee National Force? Yeah so yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
They found a disoriented young man in a thicket near
old logging roads. The man said it was Friday, that
he'd been out two days and fallen thirty feet into
a ravine and was looking for Keenan farm. He asked
only for a spearmint gum, and again he wore a
pink and white striped shirt without a coat or undershirt,
like I said earlier, despite the terrible weather, and Briggs

(26:57):
judged him sound and body, but confused, and sent him
north to Glenhouse. So this is the first interaction he
had with somebody. He's obviously lost and experiencing some level
of hypothermia. And I just can't think of why this
gentleman didn't bring him with him. Like he said, he

(27:17):
was a sound and body but confused. That to me
seems like a pretty big red flag.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
I think they didn't understand what hypothermia did to the like,
or maybe altitude of hypothermia, brain swelling, or it was
just just like yeah, yeah, it just that way, or
it was just more of like fend for yourself, like yeah,
so whatever.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Late morning, on the same road State Road and Spread,
inspectors George Turner and doctor Geile saw a young man
with a vacant expression, waving arms and pointing up at
Mount Washington. They didn't end up stopping unaware the man
was missing, so there was another encounter with him where
he could have potentially been rescued.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
And he wasn't. Geez, it's now noon.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Glen House Howard Lightfoot, a Bethlehem chauffeur trailing the inspectors
with their baggage, picked up a young man matching the description.
So now he actually has been picked up by someone
on the mountain. But unfortunately, after two miles southbound, the
passenger asked to get out near an old lumber camp
by Darby Field, then asked how far to Charlestown or

(28:22):
to Franklin. Lightfoot later recognized the face from a Boston
Harold photo as Keenan.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
So this is the.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Craziest case we've ever covered where the person that ultimately
went missing had several encounters where he could have been
rescued and then actually was picked up and was transported
and then asked to get back out.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Geez.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
So he was saved and then got back out. Kind
of crazy and contemporary wire reports from the time summarized
the mountain search being hampered by a thick bank of clouds,
which is very consistent with what the survey cruise were
experiencing Thursday and Friday. So it's now Saturday, September twenty first,

(29:07):
nineteen twelve search. The search pivots to Pickman and Glenn Corridor.
A newly formed team at the Glenhouse interviewed Wharton Briggs
and they concluded that he saw Keenan and searched intensively
between Glen House and Darby Field and the adjacent woods,
but did not find any sign of him. It's now Sunday,
September twenty second of nineteen twelve, so a massive search

(29:30):
kicked off and the family arrived. Lawrence Keenan, John's father
arrived from Charleston, rolled the cog to the summit, then
down the carriage road to join the Glen House search.
Over one hundred searchers at this time were scouring the corridor.
They waited the Peabody River and even drained Milliken's pond
and still didn't find anything. That night, mister Keenan returned

(29:53):
to Boston, abandoning hope. Unfortunately, so it's now late September.
A lot of follow ups, rumors and misses started happening
around this time, so after the big push on Sunday,
a small cadre of guides and surveyors kept working gaps.
Lightfoot returned with his detailed account, strengthening the belief that
Keenan reached the Darby Field lumber Camps area on Friday midday.

(30:17):
A second sweep of that territory sadly found nothing. So
now it's about one week post disappearance. This is when
it gets really crazy. So night cries were reported near
Glen House, the source was unknown. A supposed sighting at
Woodstock near Franconia Notch also fizzled. Keenan's mother told the

(30:40):
Boston Journal she'd heard, apparently from a clearvoyant, that John
was alive and alive in a Western hospital. Unfortunately, no
evidence surfaced, So two weeks post disappearance, the Little Town
Currier reported a water dipper and knapsack was found on
Mount Washington and was presumed his surferys clarified Keenan had

(31:03):
neither on his first mountain day, and this turned out
to be a false lead. On November twenty sixth of
nineteen twelve, this would be the finer final major lead
in the case, the Boston Post relayed a letter implying
a patient matching Keenan was at Saint a Saint Jean
de Dio, which is Montreal, and Jewell traveled to investigate.

(31:27):
It proved a clerical miscopy. The superintendent actually wrote no
such person had been admitted, so that turned out to
be a dead end.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
And that was an insane asylum.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
By the way, I forgot to mention that part. So
other notes about this case.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
So it's a little wild series of events.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, I mean, he could have been rescued multiple times.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
He was rescued, he.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Was he was picked up and was being transported and
then got out, and there was even a chance that
he was still crying out for help a week later,
and it all turned out they never found him. Later,
comp lations record simply that John from Charleston, Massachusetts, surveyor
wandered the cone of Mount Washington on September eighteenth, nineteen
twelve and never was found. His likely route off the

(32:11):
cone inferred from witnesses and weather, so he likely went
downwind east, pushing winds of fifty miles per hour more
would tend to drive a confused person off the south
and east side of the cone, likely into Tuckerman Ravine,
then out along the Cutler River to the Pinkman Notch
Road which lines up with the Briggs Turner. Lightfoot sightings

(32:35):
near the Derby Field and Glen House on Friday, so
the biggest question was why wasn't he recovered despite reaching
road and there was a ton of misconnections and lightfoot
dropping him. Near the Derby Field there was heavy fog
and ice above the timberline masking tracks and he could

(32:57):
have slipped back into the woods and fell never to
be found. A local corner suggests death by complications attempting
to the sudden onset of dread. So that's interesting. So
major theories quickly here. The biggest one is hypothermia and
being lost on the Summit Cone, so it was the

(33:19):
you know, the white out, the sudden white out that
rolled in is when he initially went missing. This would
cause low visibility wind over fifty miles an hour, very cold,
sub zero temperatures. He likely wandered off the marked Karen
route and became very lost. This was the first time
above the timberline. He was poorly dressed, and he had

(33:41):
no experience at doing anything like this, and most likely
hypothermi exhaustion could explain what happened to him. Another theory
is the injury from fall. This is another very possible one.
He could have He told Briggs himself that he'd fallen
thirty feet into ravine, so he potentially had already fallen
and could have been injured. And Joe went through the

(34:03):
train in this place. It sounds crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
I can't believe he made it that long. Yeah, like
he just kind of wandered around and survived.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, So very likely he could have, in a you know,
a very hypothermic state, fallen and into one of those
ravines and could have been covered by a rock faller
an avalanche and he's never gonna, you know, never was found.
There were also, obviously I said, there was alternative speculative leads.

(34:30):
So we had the Montreal as a saying asylum rumor,
we had the mother's clairvoyant story. There was local gossip
about night cries near Glen House and a supposed woodstock sighting,
but none of that was ever substantiated. Yeah, nineteen twelve,
it's twenty twenty five. Remains have never been found of

(34:51):
this individual. So that is our first case.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
What do you think, Joe, I think he come to
the elements of and it sounds exactly like he had hypothermia.
And I can't believe he lived as long as he did.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, that I mean clearly he was confused and definitely
had you know, I think he fell and might have
had head injury or oh yeah, absolutely, he wasn't right.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
So when I was climbing Long's Peak, there were two
people in our group that ended up having early on
set hypothermia, and they were ahead of us. I've told
the story before, but it's years ago. So we lot
new listeners, but they were really far ahead of us.
And I was with another person waiting at a junction
for someone who was slower to make sure they wouldn't
miss the route. Yeah, and we finally linked up. So

(35:39):
we're all going around the corner heading to Boulder Field
and Long's Peak, and all of a sudden, the two
people that were ahead of us, they were going to
go set up camp, were walking back and they didn't
have their stuff with them, and we're like, where are
you going. They're like, oh, to the parking lot to
get new clothes. Yeah, and this is like almost nighttime hours,
like you can't make the parking lot, and they left
all their gear and they were in different clothes and

(36:02):
we were in a snowstorms so they're soaking wet. Yeah,
and they had gone in set up a tent, changed
into dry clothes, and then walked out to go back
to the car. Okay, and just turning no, you're coming
with us, like we're going here, and like we just
got them warming back in the tent, but they were
just gonna wander back down, thinking like oh, we're just
gonna go to the car real quick. And it was,
you know, an eight hour hike. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
It causes you to just not really coherently think. I thought,
I put a map in here of what some of
the places he might have gone, and I think I only.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
You put it in like a HTML format.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, and I only uploaded one of the cases, So
that's my bad.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
I had some cool maps with the map markers and
the search zone.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I'm so glad you told everybody that's disappointed. You could
have just left it out.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, So, I mean there's probably not much you could
have even searched for that case. But our next case
is moving into two thousand and seven, so we're into
this millennia.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yes, I'm not talking like this, no, mare, No, we're not. So.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
The name of our next subject is Kevin Scott Race.
Date of birth likely around nineteen sixty or nineteen sixty one,
date missing. He was last seen on September ninth of
two thousand and seven, so very interesting in our first
two cases happened in September, and he was reported overdue
on September tenth of two thousand and seven. He was

(37:23):
a male, age forty six. Body description. He was five
to eleven, one hundred ninety five pounds, brown hair and
short brown, short hair, blue eyes. He had a mustache
extending down the sides of his chin, as described by
the New Hampshire Fish and Game Service.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
A fantastic description.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yes, clothing Geary's last scene and we don't really have
any idea of what he was wearing and personality. He
sadly had written a handwritten note that was reportedly found
at his home, stating he was looking for his final
resting place, which initially led authorities to consider a suicide scenario.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
But it sounds in line with what I would think
too after hearing that, Yeah, that right on, you're forty six.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yes, medical issues, though he had no recorded medical issues
or mental health history reported by the authorities. Business occupation hobby.
He was a businessman. He was associated with Custom Cordage
LLC of Walderboro, Maine, and there was a civil filings
around this time reported by the local newspapers that identified

(38:36):
it a business dispute with his partner. Experience in the wilderness, unknown,
experience it at this location.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Unknown.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
So we've got this one's a little interesting. Might be
the theory, I won't say it yet, but this might
actually be one of the first cases where this type
of this specific theory is true, which we've talked about
it a lot, but I don't have think we've had
a case where it's what I think it is. Okay,
So just a little background on Kevin in the situation

(39:07):
he had going on. So this is between two thousand
and two and two thousand and seven, and I want
to preface this by saying this is alleged. There were
never any any actual court cases because he disappeared. So
allegedly Race's business partner, David Byrd, alleged is a civil

(39:27):
filing that Race embezzled five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars
from the company across several years. Coverage on this also
referenced an earlier criminal allegation of two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars the year before the disappearance. So the filing
date was cited as January eighth of two thousand and eight,
and an article discussing it ran January thirtieth of two

(39:50):
thousand and eight. So these are allegations. Like I said,
there's no post disappearance criminal education in the public records,
so all alleged, Well can they.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
If they don't have anybody to bring before the court. No, hmmm,
because that's a very specific number to just be random allegations. Yeah,
that's a specific number, like an audit has been done. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Reports described him as a very experienced outdoorsman who had
hiked Mount Washington before. He lived in Dexter, Maine, which
is about two point five to three hour drive away,
so this was.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Very familiar to him.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
And like I said, allegedly he was facing a lot
of court pressure. So he was potentially facing felony theft
charges for embezzlement, and he was actually due in court
and was going to be facing severe financial and legal pressure.
And like I had said, there was that note that

(40:47):
was found in his house, handwritten note that some have
speculated was a suicide note, but they obviously don't know.
So it's start the timeline. It's Sunday, September nineteenth of
two thousand and seven. This is really the last confirmed
sighting of him. So he had told his girlfriend he
was going for a day hike. Around two thirty pm.
He was seen at the AMC Hermit Lake shelter at

(41:10):
the floor of the Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington. This
really would be the last place, last known location. So
it's Monday, September tenth of two thousand and seven.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's the evening.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
This is when he was reported overdue from the day
hike on Mount Washington. His girlfriend obviously made the report.
His vehicle was quickly found at the Appalachian Mountain Club
AMC Pickman Notch Visitor Center parking lot. It's a mouthful
and then what I have a hard time getting that

(41:45):
one out. He did so at his Woolwich home in Maine.
This is where they found that final resting. Note it's
now Wednesdays, so this is kind of when the search
gets going. They really had no really nothing to indicate
a direction of travel, so the authorities mounted a broad
based search of the Cutler River drainage, which included Tuckerman

(42:07):
Ravine and Huntington Ravine. So agencies involved in the search
at this time or New Hampshire Fishing Game, Appalachian Mountain Club,
Mountain Rescue Service, New England Canine SAR, and the US
Forest Service, so they were working trails, viewpoints in the woods.
The Army National Guard came in and assisted with aerial
search using a Blackhawk helicopter, so they had people on foot,

(42:32):
in the air, and they had canine units on the ground. Obviously,
it's mount watching, so weather is always a problem and
it was a problem during this search. So the summit
was shrouded in rain and clouds, and people described it
as like looking for a needle in a haystack, so
very tough conditions to search in. It is now Tuesday,

(42:54):
September eleventh of two thousand and seven. So this is
when Race had been scheduled to appear in Lincoln County
Superior Court on embezzlement charges, and this would be the
day after he was reported missing.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
What a coincidence.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, he didn't show up for court that day. Now
we're doing Friday to Sunday, September fourteenth. September sixteenth of
two thousand and seven. This is when the search is
suspended and the ruse theory is publicly acknowledged.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
So very interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
After several days of intensive ground and air operations without
any new clues, New Hampshire Fish and Game suspends active
searching and acknowledges. Investigators are weighing whether the circumstances, including
the note, could indicate an elaborate ruse rather than a
suicide or accident. So I have theories, You have theories, Okay.

(43:46):
Family believes that it was suicide, and authorities have kept
the case open as a possible foul play or voluntary disappearance.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
The family, all with new clothing and shoes, believes he
killed himself. Yeah, obviously.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
On January eighth to January thirtieth of two thousand and eight,
this is when his business partner, David BYRD files a
civil suit in Knox County Superior Court alleging the embezzlement
and so from September twenty fifth, two thousand and eight
to Sunday, December one, two thousand and eight, the one
of the local newspapers publishes a notice on September twenty

(44:22):
fifth inviting the public to a celebration of life for Sunday,
December one, two thousand and eight, at one pm one
pm at Bath United Methodist Church. The family believes that
he passed away in had a funeral, but from two
thousand and eight to today, there's been no public report
of a recovery of remains or a confirmed sighting in

(44:43):
the mainstream local coverage. There's also no listing of him
in NamUs, the Dough Network or the Charlie Project databases,
which is very unusual for missing persons cases, but due
to this case, it's not as clear cut that he
is actually missing. The biggest theories are The first one

(45:04):
is suicide on Mount Washington, and obviously that's mainly because
of the note that was left and Mount Washington's rugged terrain,
steep ravine's and unpredictable weather could easily conceal a body.
Even after extensive searches, and despite all of the large
scale search involved, nothing was ever found. So that is

(45:27):
a possibility because he was technically doing a day hike.
Accidental death is also a good possibility. We don't really
need to cover too much. It's pretty self explanatory. The place,
the terrain is wild. Even the best hikers could have
an accident in a place like that. The one that
a lot of people are getting hung up on is

(45:47):
the voluntary disappearance or stage suicide. Like I said, he
was due in court on a felony Bezzelman charges serious crime,
and he also faced a civil suit. Investigators and the
press have noted the possibility the suicide note was a
ruse designed to mislead authorities and give him cover to vanish.

(46:08):
So the fact that no gear, clothing, or remains were
ever located despite the massive search does give some weight
to that scenario and the note. All the legal troubles
he was potentially going through, and lack of any evidence
that he was in the area I think strongly suggests
he might have faked his own death to get out

(46:30):
of that.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
So what do you think.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
I think I think he faked his own death. Yeah,
I think this is the first time.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
What do you think. Here's what I think. Yes, sorry, No,
I'm looking more towards that. I think that it's a
strange coincidence that the day before he's doing court for embezzlement,
he decides to go on a hike leaves kind of
a note that's like looking from a final resting place. Yeah,
and it's like, you know, then he went to Thailand

(47:00):
extraditionary there, or he went to one of those countries
exactly where it's like you can just go live out
on a couple hundred thousand dollars like a king for
a while. Yeah, I'm sure he went someone like that.
And I don't know if the family's in on it.
Maybe they're like thinking that might be the case, and
we're eager to I'll leave the family out of it. Yeah,
I don't know that just too many coincidences. Yeah, we don't.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
We always talk about voluntary disappearance and we always like, yeah,
it's not a that, it's not a thing that didn't happen.
But I really think this case is very likely. That's
Ron leaning, Yeah, like he left on his own accord. Yeah,
it's just too coincidental that he decides to go on
a day hike, like you said, the day before his

(47:46):
felony court appearance. All right, third case, and this was
the case Joe was talking about with weather and terrains.
Pourth Stephan Sue, date of birth unknown. He went missing
on March tenth of twenty nineteen. He was a male,
age twenty one. Unfortunately, we don't have really much information
on his body, description, clothing and geary was last seen

(48:10):
and it really was not document documented. The family told
media a receipt in his cars showed purchases consistent with
a solo winter winter attemph of Mount Washington. So new coat,
newpac ice picks, ice tools, boots.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Like he just bought all that stuff recently, Like I'm
gonna go climb them mountain. I need these things.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, And after Joe's description of the weather and terrain,
I wouldn't advise newer people to hiking to do this,
so yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
I can't. Yeah, I mean it's you look at his age, like,
sure he could have been climbing, hiking, but I'm guessing
he was brand new at this. Yeah, twenty one, I
mean at that at that skill level. Again, I'm sure,
there's some young teenagers that have climbed tons of mountains
and are probably experts of this, but at that number,

(48:58):
I think growse as you get a little older.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Based on the description of this time, this part of
the season of the Mount Washington, you need to be
really experienced.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
We could be wrong.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Like I said, we want some people that have summitted
Mount Washington in the winner to call and leave a
voicemail about your experience because it sounds crazy and winter
conditions around this time no good, no good.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
One of the quotes was.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Immense area, deep snow and lack of specificity so they
didn't know his destination. That obviously hindered the search. Another
no no from Joe and I tell someone.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
What you're doing. Yeah, you need to know where you are. Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
And he had limited hiking and winter experience per the family,
so not very experienced in general, and to do this
type of hike is a big red flag. So personality,
we sadly don't really know much about his personality from
news reports. Family did state that he had struggled with

(50:05):
mental health since his teenage years, so that could play
a role in what happened here. Experience in the wilderness
very limited. He had done a handful of day hikes,
but no documented winter mountaineering background experience in this location. Fortunately,
we don't have any documented evidence that shows he's hiked

(50:25):
in this area prior to his disappearance.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
New to the area, new gear, Yeah, just taking a
crack at it, and yeah, that's where he chose to go.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, pre disappearance. I always liked to understand in some
of these cases, so why were they there? So why
was Sue on Mount Washington this day? And there really
isn't a definitive motive for why you was there. Family
and friends told media that they found, like I said,
a sporting goods store receipt inside his cars showing purchases

(50:57):
of a new coat, backpack, ice picks, boots, suggesting his
intent to solo hike up Mount Washington. Other family had
noted that, like I said, he had mental health struggles
in his teenage years, and speculated that this may have
played a part in the decision to go to the mountain,
possibly seeking solitude or escape.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Very interesting.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
There are some unsubstantiated reports on social media that indicated
he had an argument with his father on March eighth
of twenty nineteen, regarding the cleaning of his room and
that he stormed out of the house after which he
was not seen the next day. So this conflict with
his father could have also started the ball rolling two

(51:41):
on him trying this hike. Friday, March eighth, twenty nineteen
is when our timeline starts off. It's the morning in Trackett, Massachusetts,
so this is a family account. So this is the
last known in person sighting, so it's at their home
and this was later reported by friends and family via

(52:03):
social media posts, but it's not in the official releases.
And like I said, that other statement about him having
a fight with his father also was not in any
official releases, so it's unverified.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Just keep that in mind.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
So it's now daytime in the Mount Washing area. New
Hampshire authorities later say they received a report that a
person matching Sue's description might have been seen hiking in
the Cutler River drainage, so that is the Tuckerman Huntington
Ravine watershed on this date. This was unfortunately unconfirmed sighting,

(52:39):
but they did use this to guide the search because
they didn't really have a lot to go off of
the weather.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
At the time.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
So the high that day was nine degrees, the low
was minus twelve. Average wind it was a light forty
nine and a half miles per hour with wind us
up to seventy four.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
So's just insane.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah, that's wild, wild temperatures and wind for just an
average march on Mount Washington. Just a little context on
the potential route he may have taken. So he would
have gone from Pinkham Notch, which is the standard winter ascent.
It heads towards Tuckerman Ravine Trail and then Hermit Lake,

(53:22):
then typically lyonhead winter route towards the summit. It is
now Sunday, March ninth of twenty nineteen Mount Washington Auto Road.
So the cool road Joe talked about, there was a
second unconfirmed sighting. So this sighting places a person matching
sues description on the auto road and this actually became

(53:46):
one of the most promising leads and searchers kind of
adjusted their search, but unfortunately no clues came from this search.
Little weather on the summit this day, high was nineteen,
got a little warmer, low was zero, and the average
wind that day was only thirty six miles per hour
with gusts up to seventy That.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Is so wild. That's like so windy.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
All the time, and you know, just gusts up to
seventy near hurricane force. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, wild weather.
And I just put the weather in there just to
give people an idea of the weather that Sue could
be facing. And the searchers, the searchers are out in
this stuff too, which is wild. So it's now Sunday,

(54:35):
March tenth of twenty nineteen. Thorties at this time state
that Sue has been listed as a missing person, and
by three point thirty pm, a friend's public post shared
online says Sue's phone briefly pinged a tower in the
Westford Chelmsford area that afternoon, then went offline. Unfortunately, this

(54:56):
was unverified by officials, and I just included it because
in this day and age, more recent cases, there's a
lot of family and friends posting things online that don't
always necessarily get verified or confirmed by official reports. But
I feel it's interesting to include that information. I just

(55:19):
want ever, you know, these are unverified by law enforcement.
Whether on Sunday we're getting warmer, high twenty five low
of four. We had let's see here three and a
half almost four inches of snow that day. Average wind
speed was forty seven miles power with wind us up
to ninety four and periods of very low visibility and

(55:39):
strenuou causing strenuous travel. Lovely Sunday, Lovely Sunday on the mountain.
It is now. That was Sunday, March tenth. It is
now Saturday, March sixteenth of twenty nineteen. This would be
when his vehicle is located. So the vehicle was located
at the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. He drove a civic

(56:00):
and it was parked on the east side of Mount Washington.
So again this is an important clue. So the search
efforts kind of shifted towards the area where his car
was found because, like I said, at the beginning of this,
they didn't really know he was maybe gonna go hike
in the area. They really didn't know where he was going,

(56:21):
what his plan was. So it's now Sunday, March seventeenth
of twenty nineteen. A full scale search now is going
on above the tree line. We have a lot of
agencies involved. You have the New Hampshire Fishing Game Conservation Officers,
the us FS snow rangers from the Mount Washington Avalanche Center,

(56:41):
you have Mountain Rescue Service MRS.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
You've got Mount.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Washington Observatory and the Mount Washington Auto Road, all providing
logistics for moving teams above the tree line. At this
time the search involved about twenty personnel and conditions were
cited as a search was called off pretty quickly as
far as searches go, and the main reason was weather.

(57:08):
It was just putting the searchers in danger, which I
don't blame them. So the last known location areas tied
to the Cutler River drainage lead and the auto road
lead were searched, but no clues were found, and by
the end of the day the search was discontinued pending
additional information. So a pretty quick search and the summit

(57:32):
weather on this day, I can see why they canceled it.
So high of two a low of minus six. Average
wind speed was sixty one and a half miles per
hour with gusts up to one.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Hundred and ten. Jeez, So God, this has to be.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Some of the craziest weather we've ever covered on one
of our cases. Just wild weather. It's now Monday, March
eighteenth of twenty nineteen, so the search was publicly suspended
on this day and official site the immense area, deep
snow and lack of precise destination and crews were standing

(58:07):
down penning new information. So the family reviews the car
at this point, and this is where they found that
gear receipt and these were family statements to the media
that talked about what gear they had. They told reporters
that he had recently gone to a sporting goods store
and purchased a new coat, new pack ice. I went

(58:28):
all through over that before, and it seemed like he
was planning to solo summit Mount Washington during these conditions.
So not good, and the family continued private searches into
mid April of twenty nineteen and they were checking nearby
towns and stores. A couple additional notes on this case

(58:48):
where we get the theories. Despite periodic attention in regional
media and mountain safety channels, no official recovery or confirmed
sightings have ever been announced since the March twenty nineteen
search was suspended, and as of August of twenty twenty five,
based on all the public records, nothing has been found

(59:09):
of him. Community efforts there are Facebook pages and podcasts
like ours continue to cover this case to raise awareness,
but none of it's led to any new clues in
the case, so official theories. One of the biggest ones
is lost on the mountains, So the most widely held
assumption is that he attempted a winter ascent, became lost

(59:32):
or incapacitated due to the dangerous conditions, ultimately succumbing to
exposure or injury in an unsearched area. I feel like
that's highly likely based on the weather conditions.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Another one is sadly suicide, and this is just really
because of his known mental health struggles that he's had
since he was a teen, and some have speculated that
he may have hiked up there in a deliberate act
rather than a simple adventure gone wrong, but obviously this
remains unconfirmed by official sources. Another one is voluntary disappearance,

(01:00:08):
so another line of thought suggests that he chose to
disappear using the trail at his cover. A celfham ping
in Westford, Massachusetts, not far from his home, occurring after
his disappearance, is cited it as supporting this theory, though
it's unverified and one gist of pure speculation is foul play.

(01:00:28):
Some community members point out the timeline gap from the
family argument to the vehicle's placement at Mount Washington, and
suggests someone may have staged the hike by leaving a
receipt with hiking gear to mislead investigators. Obviously, this is
pure speculation and there's no official backing behind this theory,

(01:00:49):
but flyers did surface in the townies from implying possible
involvement from relatives, which was also unsubstantiated. So very kind
of weird stuff going on in these case.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yeah, it sounds more like something that they thought up.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah, someone maybe seeking attention, Yeah, something like It sounds.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
More like an angry teenager got in a fight his
parents wanted to go do something like for control. I
remember being a teenager and when you get in trouble,
just like I'm a big man, I'm gonna go do
something like Yeah, I want to go do something like that,
like extraordinary. And he probably went and bought a bunch
of gears and I'm gonna go summon a mountain and
was unprepared. I really think it's just lost in the mountain. Yeah,

(01:01:28):
I don't think it's anything spectacular other than just he
was woefully unprepared for the conditions he was about to encounter.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Yeah, I mean they called the search off very quickly
because of those conditions and search teams are We've covered
a lot of cases where they've searched in some really
nasty weather.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Thirty milin hour winds is no joke, and that was
like average. Yeah, and then with gust to sixty seventy
one hundred. Yeah, that's just that's crazy. Like I couldn't
imagine surviving in that with the brand new gear and
not knowing how to do it. Yeah. No, I agree
with you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
I think this last one is sadly just an accident
and exposure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
All right, Well, thank you everyone for tuning into our show.
Please log on and let us know what you think
about the three cases that we covered. We appreciate all
of you for listening and sharing locations and on with
your friends and family. Be sure to like and follow
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(01:02:30):
we have the new website available. What's it called the
hikercash dot Com. Yeah, hikercash dot com and get some
cool stuff like locations and playing cards and a blanket. Additionally,
you can subscribe to our patron account, YouTube and Apple,
where you'll have access to special events and additional shows
for paid customers only. You can also watch the videos
on YouTube which are great if you want to watch

(01:02:50):
me and Mike just struggle through all the things we
struggle through. And lastly, when enjoying the beauty of nature,
whether backpacking, camping, or simply taking a walk, always remember
to leave no trace. Thanks and we will see you
all next time.

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