June 11, 2024 • 47 mins
At approximately 5:15 p.m. on May 10th, 1967, three boys, ages 11, 13, and 14, explore a cave near their house in Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Brothers Billy Hoag, Joel Hoag, and their friend Craig Dow are never seen again. It is now 52 years later. This is their story.
Welcome back to the Lost Boys of Hannibal. Frankie and Chris return with updates and insights into the case. They discuss the recent mapping of the Lost Boys Cave, the importance of Occam's Razor in the investigation, and the potential discovery of a large room that could hold the key to solving the mystery.
The episode delves into the latest findings, the challenges faced, and the next steps in the search for the boys. It highlights the community's continued interest and support, and the technological advancements aiding the investigation.
Join the hosts as they navigate new leads, debunk old theories, and seek your help in obtaining the necessary equipment to further explore the promising new areas. The quest to uncover the fate of the Lost Boys of Hannibal continues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
At approximately 5.15 p.m. on May 10th in 1967, three boys ages 11,
13, and 14 explore a cave near their house in Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri.
Brothers Billy Hoag, Joel Hoag, and friend Craig Dow are never seen again.
(00:20):
It is now 52 years later.
This is their story.
Music.
God only knows what I'd be without you,
If you should ever leave me The light would still go on, believe me,
(00:44):
The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me?
God only knows what I'd be without you.
(01:07):
Welcome back to the Lost Boys of Hannibal. Me and Chris were the ones that went
lost there for a little while, but we're back now. Hi, Chris.
Hey, how you doing, Frankie? Good, good. And we can't promise you we'll be doing episodes every week.
I know we've been getting this demand on, you know, the Facebooks and we get
those little messages that come in every now and then. It's like,
are you guys like still doing this?
(01:27):
We are. We are still doing it. Yeah. And this episode, the return of Occam's
razor, right? So least amount of assumptions.
Listen to, you know, the people around the area. Listen to the actual people
that maybe went missing, Chris.
Yeah. Yeah. Stories that we've listened to and talked about years ago starting
to resurface like, oh my gosh, this might have more importance than what we thought. Yeah.
(01:51):
And it gets crazy. Chris has been, like I said, we have never left boots on
the ground. He's been working with a lot of different government assets.
I'm not going into names or anything like that. We're also not even going into locations.
Doing this episode, we are walking a tightrope. And the reason why we feel the
need to do it is because we logged on recently and we're getting like 70 to
(02:14):
80 hits a day. People are still listening to our, our podcast.
We're really close to 400,000 downloads. So it's like, you know,
we have to, we have to refresh this.
We have to give you guys tidbits on what's going on and we can probably maybe
tune in and do stuff every month. Just kind of give you something.
Maybe it's not going to be always 35 minutes or 40 minutes, but maybe it's like
(02:35):
15 minutes so you guys know that, Hey, we're still doing this.
We're still with the family.
There's been no, there's some weird
stuff on mine, Chris. I don't know if you've read it like I have, but.
Do you have a falling out with the family? No, the Hoag's very much love us.
Chris actually loved the Hoag so much he actually moved to Hannibal.
So that's how close he wanted to be. Had to be closer.
You know, Frankie, one of the things you just said, though, and I think it points
(02:56):
out, too, is we started this podcast.
First, very first reason we started this podcast was because we were curious
about the story. And it was an interesting story.
And then I don't know if we ever really realized that we were going to get as
deeply involved in it as we have, which I think is awesome.
And I'm glad we have. And I've had a lot of comments from friends and family
that are rooting, you know, hoping that we can solve this someday.
(03:19):
And I think, you know, to take those reins is awesome.
But then it became something else with this podcast. And it became something
to where we were looking for more than just us telling the story.
We were looking for people to help us and help us create answers to the story and find the boys.
And I think that's no different than what we're going to be asking for here.
Because, again, we are in that mode of like we do need things.
(03:39):
And we'll get into details of that here in a few minutes. But,
you know, just just, you know, the cooperation, the collaboration with all the
people we've had helping us over the last few years.
You know, we have a Slack channel that we focus on. We have a bunch of information on there.
We have law enforcement officials. We have, you know, people from government agencies.
We've got all these different people helping us out, trying to solve the mystery
(04:01):
and even the family as well that trying to find the boys.
So, yeah, you know, we did it for we obviously want to give you guys an update
because it's been a while. But then also, you know, maybe we finally get in
the right ears that we can get that person that can help us make the next step forward.
Yeah, and we're going to discuss that next step really huge.
A little bit of housekeeping.
(04:22):
We have not done that either. Going to about 2,500 followers on our main Facebook
page and about 1,400 in the discussion group, which is a private group where
you guys get to basically talk everything. So welcome all new members.
And this is we're recording Sunday, June 9th. So we just went on there and approved 13 working.
That were just sitting in there. So sorry. And then we had a podcast that actually
(04:45):
mentioned us. We had some really cool feedback as to how they found us.
And it looks like Spotify is actually recommending us based on people's listens.
So that is just cool. I will be expecting a $1 check from them.
I know Joe Rogan just signed another $200 million account with them.
I think we can at least get $200.
I mean, what do you think? For sure. At least 20 cents.
(05:07):
It is nice to be recognized. organized. Now, the other thing that part of housekeeping
is we have, and I know Aaron Menke has done this too, we are on Podbeam and
we open up our podcast to ads.
You might be hearing presidential and local and state government people that
are basically saying, hey, vote for me. This guy is terrible.
(05:29):
Me and Chris do not have a political affiliation. Those ads,
I mean, it could come from Biden. It can come from Trump, could come from your local government.
We just want to give you guys a heads up that that is something that they pay
us maybe eight bucks or something like that a month for it.
And it just goes towards the servers that we need to kind of keep the sustained pod beam.
You can have a free one. We don't, we like, we want to see our analytics.
(05:52):
So we've always kind of kept this in there. I think actually Chris has mentioned
that on wild Quincy that, you know, we have server fees and we want to make
sure that we're doing those things.
So if you do hear a political ad, if you do hear those things,
that is not coming from me and Chris.
That is just what Podbean is kind of throwing at us.
Now, you can turn that off, but we said, nah. I mean, now's the time to kind
(06:12):
of keep that on and see how much we can turn and burn, because this episode
is really gonna predicate some money that we're gonna need to raise in order to do,
this really big step in finding the boys.
And as I led off in the beginning here, Occam's Razor, right?
Least amount of assumptions.
There's a story, Chris, right?
Unless you have anything else. No. Well, it's funny. We had this.
(06:36):
We've been talking for about an hour before we started recording and going through
all the data and information and all this stuff.
And Frankie said this, and I'll take it as a compliment.
It was like, yeah, you kept a lot of good notes. And I'm like going through
all the notes from all the old episodes.
I came across this very amazing, like, holy cow, like this aha light bulb moment.
(06:57):
And then I clicked away from it. I can't find it again, Frankie. It's in there.
Yeah, go figure. It's a new computer. It's a new computer. Yeah, exactly.
So, yeah, lead it up to this, Frankie. Give us what you got and see if I can
find out why you're doing that.
Yeah. So, Monday, as you guys know, if you're avid listeners,
and we have some new listeners that have just kind of like crashed and burned
(07:19):
and just kind of every day to work, listened to every episode,
and then they got to that season four where it was like, what happened?
Why'd they stop? If you're that person or you've re-listened to the podcast,
which we do have those people, You might have heard of this story.
We all know that on Monday night, they got their motors oiled when they got
home by the dad saying, why were you out so late? Why are you going into the
(07:42):
caves alone without telling us?
And they kind of got reprimanded. And so they didn't go Tuesday.
But on Monday, when they did go, they discovered something. They found something.
Chris? Yeah. So one of the things that we talked about, and it goes all the
way back to the dig part three. So we are talking season one.
(08:04):
So here it is. This is the storyline for this individual called Mary Jo Powell.
And in Lost Boys of Hannibal book by author John Wingate, she was interviewed by John.
And in the interview, she said that on May 9th, she was with her two sons and
husband on Hannibal's south side collecting rent from tenants.
While her husband was collecting the money, Billy Hogue approached the car to
(08:26):
talk with her two sons, Tony and Randy.
As Mary Jo listened on, Billy explained to Tony and Randy that he and Joey discovered
a new cave and wanted them to go with him tomorrow, which was May 10th, to explore it.
Billy pointed out to the area of Lover's Leap and explained that there's a bulldozer
That's been going through and breaking area, breaking through the area where
(08:49):
they broke through, made a hole on the hillside and it revealed a large crack on the hill.
He and Joey, and this is by far the most important sentence out of this whole thing.
He and Joey saw that it opened up to a big room.
Okay. Billy then asked Mary Jo if Tony and Randy could go with them tomorrow.
And she went, no, it's too dangerous.
(09:11):
And then of course, Mary Jo explained in the interview to John that she went
to the police after the boys went missing, but they just weren't that interested in her story.
So, so yeah. So now we get to the point, Frankie, of why that one sentence of
he and Joey saw that it opened up to a big room is important.
Well, it is. And that our conversation that we had, I'm a talker as you guys
(09:37):
know, and, and so is Chris.
Chris is a great talker as well. But I was speechless as Chris was going through
the materials that he's been doing up there.
Now, before I get into that, I want you, I want my crew, my true crammers.
I do get these messages all the time.
I have completely ruled out John Wayne Gacy. He's not even a percentage anymore.
There's just no possible physical way he could have done it.
(10:01):
And the new adaption book that came out and we got into a kind of a back and forth.
I think that was the biggest highlight kind of this last, the end of last year
and a little bit this year was that he came out with something else.
And allegedly where the boys are buried is now in somebody's front yard, which.
Yeah. Not to mention we dug up a whole football field for him and then he changes
(10:23):
his story. But yeah, you know, for some other day, I guess. I'm glad we could do that for him.
Yeah. A whole football field. And it is documented and it is recorded and we
do have it on video. It did happen, guys.
We have drone footage and there is nothing at the cement plant.
So if you're just reading that book or just finished it, there's nothing there.
We dug exactly where, because we were actually with the mediums that told us
(10:44):
where that actually was.
So there is no kind of vac skating. So that, that part of it,
John Wayne Gacy actually is what the first phone call that I got from Chris was about.
We have since gone so far and beyond into the realm of reality where it could
not have been John Wayne Gacy.
Now that brings up another one, which is Tommy Terrence Hill.
This is a person that is definitely still a person of interest.
(11:08):
I would say I've basically dwindled it probably down to one to 2% of it actually being a possibility.
I'm keeping him in there because of his history in Texas, where he was a youth
minister, where he does get, you know, bringing kids in, gathering the trust of the family.
And then he gets pinched with these two kids that he, you know,
(11:29):
does some terribly sexual assaults to both children.
And he would serve 15 years and ends up dying in prison. And so we have all that report.
We've actually posted those pictures. There is no other, I looked at,
you know, Floyd, Lloyd Atwood again today, the person of interest that actually
the Missouri cops and the chief of police were actually looking at and, hey, if we see this guy.
(11:50):
And so what Atwood was all about was there was this open cavern as well.
There was this place where he saw the boys inside Murphy's cave.
And so Bill Karras, which is what he calls him. So William or Bill,
that's not even his real name either, but whatever.
So if you got to remember the last episode, me and Chris did.
But the, the, the thing is they walk in there and actually what he thought was
(12:12):
a hand was actually a rock that did actually look like a hand.
So this is kind of just giving you a backdrop into the things that we've followed
and we're just not spending the time there anymore.
Now, if you guys know the Hill family in Moberly, if you know anything about
those people, the John Wayne Gacy stuff for me is like, it put a,
I mean, put a, put a, put a thumbnail on it.
(12:34):
It's, it's over. put the nail in the coffin let's move on there's just no possible
way Tommy Terrence Hill maybe there's somebody out there that knows maybe there's
a guy that served time with him that was his prison mate maybe he had mentioned
something that's the only thing that I would kind of gather from that type of thing.
For us, the more we went down with Julie Angel and a bunch of other people who
(12:55):
have really kind of carried us into this way of the geospace, right?
So where the speleological sense of it, I'll say it for Chris,
but the sense of what we've been able to do has really led us to more of,
yes, the true crime stuff is fascinating. Yes, the true crime stuff is a draw.
But we have to stick to the facts as they happen. We have to keep the case relevant
(13:19):
to what we have in front of us.
And I guess we were, we did the same thing the cops did, Chris.
I guess we heard the girl's story, Mrs. Powell's story, and we kind of looked the other way.
And today we looked at something and I'll have Chris go through it because he
probably knows more than I do, but I just want you guys to know I was speechless.
(13:40):
And I was, I was very reminiscent of like, do you remember a story,
Chris, like way back when he's like, I do remember that story.
Story so chris and it took a while to find it
which is crazy too because i i was like man where was that at
where was that i couldn't find it but yeah i
think you brought up a couple great points i i think it going back
to the true crime aspect i find it funny that i've
(14:01):
always been my percentages have always been heavy heavy
heavy cave it's always been that way it's
still that way however my i think my percentage
on terry hill is probably higher than yours now because there's
so many similarities of like
why do you have somebody that ends up doing what he did has
a history of doing it from back in the day is part
(14:22):
of the story about the boys he actually is a part of the conversation he is
here when it happens it's just like you know he he had i guarantee you i i could
pretty much guarantee at least i feel like i can guarantee that they probably
had interactions like those boys probably at some point in time had interactions with terry hill Hill.
Literally, there's articles in the newspaper saying that Terry Hill had supper
(14:48):
with a family just down the street from the Hoag's.
So, I don't know. My percentage is... But again...
He has no proof. We've never heard he killed anybody. So you're going down a
rabbit hole there. And then you got three on top of that.
So yeah, okay. But anyway, let's go back to what we were talking about.
So the percentages are definitely high for the cave aspect.
(15:08):
And so let me lay this all out for you guys, because it's going to be a lot
to kind of soak in about why that sentence is so important.
But I also have to kind of walk, as Frankie said earlier, kind of a fine line
because there's some information I cannot give out. out just going to cause
more headaches, if you will, than anything, if I do, which that's not our goal here.
(15:29):
And so I want to stay away from that. But let's go to the basics first.
You guys are all well aware that the Lost Boys Cave has been reopened.
And that happened up, ironically, three years ago today from when we're recording.
This was the first time that's more than anybody's been in it since 1967.
But we explored it in 67. We explored it in 67. Again, explored it just us three years ago.
(15:53):
And in that process, now, since that three years have happened,
the Missouri Geological Survey, some of the Missouri cavers have gotten involved
and they've started to remap it.
We're getting close and it's still been an ongoing process of remapping this
cave because it is a lot of work.
It is a very extensive, very extensive cave.
(16:14):
Frankie, you saw the picture of Kind of an outline of what they have.
And it's much bigger than what you probably even thought. Yeah.
Like I said, I was pretty speechless. And then Chris is kind of showing me what
exactly what I'm looking at, right?
Because the GIS stuff is something that we do in my line of work,
(16:35):
but it's mostly dealt with addresses and making sure that mail and ballots are getting to people.
People so looking at it from from this aspect
is it's not even like
far-fetched it's not far-fetched it's
it's just you look at it and you see this gaping and i think that when you first
explained it to me you had it reversed and then you're like oh wait yeah yeah
(16:58):
like wait wait no that's not right yeah the red actually means that this you
know and it's a void yeah yes this void of
uncertainty or maybe very certain that this might be the void that,
you know, Billy might have a...
So let's dig into this a little bit farther. So again, Missouri,
(17:19):
there's some cavers that are from the state that are doing this mapping,
which is great because now it's getting mapped.
It's more than just a crude drawing that happened from back in the day.
Now it's an actual legitimate map cave, which is going to be great.
So they're still working on it. It's a slow process.
They're not done yet. So that tells you how long this takes.
But in doing so, we're also
(17:42):
finding out that when we go to the statement from Mary Jo Powell saying that
her that Joey actually told her kids that there was an opening to a very big
room that doesn't match up with what we're seeing.
All right. So what that means is what has been mapped so far does not show any
(18:06):
large rooms whatsoever. These are narrow passages.
You can get through them and there's a lot of passages, but there is no such thing as a big room.
This has been a storyline for a while, actually, because even back in season
one, we discussed this multiple times that we heard of a big room.
But when we heard this story from Mary Jo, that we believed that it was going
(18:27):
to be up in the next layer, which there's another limestone layer higher up on Lover's Leaps Hill.
And we always kind of of assumed okay well maybe he's talking about up
there higher maybe that's where this big large room's at
so we kind of always defaulted that's where the room was at we just
don't know where it's at right so now knowing what we know and with the mapping
almost finished we don't have a big room frankie you don't so we have to go
(18:55):
to the next point of well if it's not where we know it is,
then maybe it's where it's, we don't know where it is. Exactly. And so.
And just to point out, just to point out, Chris, you would know more than I
would because I am not going to go down in that same way.
The main street was this tight. You got stuck for a second and I, nope.
(19:18):
So definitely not large cavernous places, spatial relationships,
just very tight quarters. So.
Lost Boys Cave, you may, the best spots that I was at, you may be able to extend
your arms out all the way.
Maybe. But that was the extent of how wide it was going to be.
Now, height-wise, it's like 15 foot tall.
I mean, they're really tall cave passages. But width-wise, not big rooms. Right.
(19:43):
So again, this is where we have to do the tight line. There was work that has
been done, and I can't tell you where it came from or how we got access to it.
But there has been work that has been done that has shown us that there is possibly
some areas of interest that may officially show a big room.
(20:04):
And again to kind of
lightly go into this is that
back in 67 even back in regular times the
cavers believed that where the caves ended that
was where they ended and there was nothing more to it well we found out that
well how is that really true and julie and i have had many conversations about
(20:24):
this you know julie is our chief chief geologist here for lost boys and we've
had this discussion about well it doesn't really make sense why the caves would
just randomly end and that's it.
Well, now we're kind of maybe have some proof that there is a large room close
by where the boys would have went to.
So let me, I'm going to lay this out, Frankie, you probably do a better job
(20:45):
than I will, but let me give you just a recap. I was kind of explaining this
to you before we started.
Last thing we saw was the boys 515 sitting on the second terrace of Lover's Leap.
They're looking down at where the construction's happening. There's a
bulldozer working across it and doing some work we know in the
previous day the boys would play like a game where
they would run into the hole before the bulldozer got there and
(21:07):
then they would come back out right what if the game was
being played again on may 10th okay and instead this time they go to the large
room which is going to the right instead of going to the left and let's just
say that bulldozer came back across and all of a sudden now a hole collapses
or a roof collapses and it blocks them in okay Okay.
(21:28):
So what if it all comes down to that the searchers were going left and not going right?
And that's because they believed, and we have even conversations with Denise
that had back when there was a chance for her to talk with some cavers that searched back in 67,
that they said, well, I wish we would have looked at that breakdown because
(21:49):
there was a couple areas that we didn't dig and we probably should have dug.
That makes you wonder, okay, was it a collapse that blocked off a passage and
that's where the boys went?
And now we have proof that there may be a large room on the other side of that breakdown.
But even to present day, some of the people mapping the cave don't think,
you know, today they don't know because they kept saying, no,
(22:11):
no, they don't, they stop right there, but, but they don't.
And what we're, what we're starting to prove with resistivity and the stuff
that, that, that Chris has been doing on the ground there is starting to prove
that, that there's more to this.
Remember that we said, you know, and some of you guys are like,
hey, I just heard this yesterday because you listened to a podcast that we did three years ago.
But for some of our older fans, remember what we told you, assumptions are death,
(22:37):
right? We don't make assumptions, right?
We want to theorize. We want to say, well, maybe possibly, but when somebody
shuts something down, like it can't be possible, well, that's when I get skeptical.
Like, why can't it be, right? Because Julie was never under that assumption.
And Julia's never said that that's, I don't think Mark's even said that.
But when you shut things down, you know, that gets into a whole other,
(23:01):
you know, rabbit hole, if you will.
But the, this idea that coming back to grips with looking at what the boys were
talking about, looking at this game of,
you know, hide from the bulldozer, which talk about a generation that, man,
really just risked their lives.
(23:23):
Just kind of going in and out of those dead basic holes.
But also, Chris, I want to mention too that a collapse with blue shale or any
shale could have happened yesterday or 100,000 years ago, and you really wouldn't know.
You really wouldn't know. So for some of them going down, they're like,
no, no, no, that was like that yesterday. That was like that yesterday.
Because to the bulldozer, when the cave is... So what Chris is saying is that
(23:46):
you're entering this cave, you're looking at it, and then maybe one of them says, what is that?
And they keep walking forward and forward and forward, and this whole thing
opens up. Like this is it, this is what I was telling you guys.
And all of a sudden that bulldozer, they just don't make it.
And then boom, and just like that, that blue shell just crushes in on itself.
And then now they're trapped in this couch.
And we can prove that now. We can actually, you can see that there's something, we can prove a void.
(24:10):
We can prove that there is something that these, that they might've stumbled
on, on that Monday night and basically hype that up on a Tuesday.
And, you know, Mrs. Powell and her children were saved. There could have been five lost boys.
And that's what makes that getting back to Occam's razor, right?
How do three kids go missing? And I was talking to Chris earlier today,
(24:32):
looking at the old police report, Craig was five, 10. Okay.
Joey was five, 10. Billy was five, six.
These are pretty big boys. I mean, they were thin, but they're tall.
Like it's a man size people.
Okay. And you got three of them. The chances of somebody abducting that is very
(24:53):
rare when you're a tiny, small kid and you're like six and seven years old and
you know, you're still four foot.
It's very easy. but not two, five, 10. So once again, it kind of diminishes
this idea that somebody just like kidnapped three large people.
Well, two large boys and one large, small one. So, but how do three people go
missing in an instant, right?
(25:14):
Well, they're just playing and they run into something and it,
you know, the sinkhole has also come up a couple of times too,
Chris, this idea of a sinkhole and it can play.
It's actually mentioned in some of those diagrams that some areas up there,
there's other areas too.
So this is not just one area we're talking about.
There are many areas that if you look at the stories of people on the ground
(25:37):
in 67 that they're telling, it's not like today where somebody is trying to
get likes on YouTube or TikTok.
People are actually trying to tell stories of things that they actually heard
and things they actually saw.
And the revelation today, and I think I reached out to you last week is like,
hey, we should do an episode.
You're like, yeah, cool. Let's do it. And to look at where we are today versus
(25:59):
where we are four years ago and how much ground we've covered and just looking
at the mapping that's being done and the people that are helping us and these
state organizations that have gotten behind it and are really concerned.
We've never been turned away.
And I would always say that there are so many, and I know the world is weird
right now, but there are so many great people that still want to help us find these boys.
(26:20):
And if that goes along the track of, of, of what they're doing anyway,
then they've always been very gracious and helpful to us because like you guys
know, this has never been about, you know, me and Chris,
you know, holding up a Peabody award for best podcast, which we might,
if this, if this void does come to pass. And so it is pretty insane.
(26:42):
Yeah. It's not been one of those things where I, you know, Oh.
We it's it's become more of
a thing now where we just want to find them
it's just we we were farther along and we've said
this before but we're farther along now than when anybody's ever
been we've said that even from 67 nobody's gotten as
far i feel as we have gotten especially with the
(27:04):
technology and i think we've talked about that since the very first season
is that technology is going to be what wins this and technology
is going to be what finds these boys and we're still search for
that and and i think frankie where we need to go from here though is that
ask part and the ask part is is
that the you know we keep running into these these
these roadblocks if you will or dead or
(27:25):
dead end passages if you will but what we're
looking for is we need equipment and that's
where we're getting a roadblock out right now is because the type of
equipment we need to get is not easy to get
and what that equipment is is we need a drill that
can bore straight down and it can do a six inch vertical hole and
it can go about 45 feet in the ground and so that seems
(27:47):
like an easy ask but it's not so easy when you have most
of them are full-size trucks and we can't get a full-size truck to
where we need to go yes there is there is one that chris sent me today like
it was gonna oh we'll just purchase one yeah for 30 000 so we'll just raise
we'll do a we'll do a we'll do a go fund me we need 29 000 and then we'll use
(28:08):
this one start drilling holes all over the place then. That's fine.
But so no, what we're looking for is something like that. There is a local company that has been asked.
I know a few people have already have asked them for us. And I'm not going to
give that company name away because I don't.
Do anything like that. As far as I know, they'd be the only ones that I'm aware
of that would be able to do it here in Hannibal, but they don't have the equipment to do it either.
(28:29):
So we're looking beyond that. We do have some names for some St.
Louis companies that have dealt in this, and so we're hoping to get in touch with them.
But if you know anybody that can do that, again, it can't be like...
So again, some of you listeners probably are from the rural areas,
and so you've seen a well being drilled before.
Usually when they drill a well for water, It's a full-size truck that is being
(28:52):
used for the drill, and we can't use that. It's too big.
It needs to be one of these that you can kind of drive around with remote or
ride on the back of. It can't be a full-size truck.
Again, it needs to go 40 foot in the ground. It needs to be at least a six-inch
diameter hole, and that's what we're looking for because we have an X marks the spot.
Literally, Frankie, we just need to be able to do a little spinny thing to go into that X.
(29:17):
Yeah, and I'm actually going to post it on our Facebook page in case you need
more of a visual of what we're trying to describe,
because you might have seen, you know, stuff like Curse of Oak Island,
where these guys bring out these monster trucks with these huge drills on it.
That is not what we're looking for. We don't want to abolish the neighborhood.
(29:37):
Maybe we'll do that next, but we don't need a, like a 10 foot wide casing right now. So. Exactly.
Yeah. So I'm going to post that to our Facebook page. So you might have seen
that if you were on on Sunday night and now this episode is going to premiere
Tuesday. So you're like, what is that about?
And I'm just going to put, we will explain this.
Exactly. So that's what we're looking for. Again, if a company is willing.
(30:00):
To donate would be the ideal situation but if we need to go to the route that
somebody is willing to do it it may be that we have to ask for something else
down the road but we'll get to that point when we get there but this honestly
guys and i'm not trying to upsell this or anything is that this is probably
one of the best chances that i think that we have for the cave scenario,
(30:20):
out of anything possible especially when you really start to consider that the
missouri caving company or the groups that have been in there that have been
surveying the most likely location the boys are going to be at,
they're going and hitting every single inch of this whole cave system.
And they are not finding anything besides stuff from the 1967 search.
(30:42):
They're not finding anything from the boys. So that tells us the boys are probably
not in the easy to find places in Lost Boys Cave.
There's still a very, very minute chance they could find them.
I was mentioning this to Frankie that there are a
few areas in the cave where there are literal voids in
the ground and i'm not too sure they've been searched
very well yet so there are some chances and like
(31:03):
i told frankie too you got to remember like we
are on the top end of the limestone layer in the lost boys cave which
is about 15 foot to the ceiling it's got silt down
below but there was a couple areas when i was in there in 2021 that
i would put my foot on the floor and it felt like it was hollow underneath no
and like i told you and i remember if i see if i got my math on here it's about
(31:24):
60 feet of limestone layer so it's possible that you got 15 foot above maybe
three foot of silt and then probably what another 48 feet of nothing below you.
Yeah does not feel a little scary but it's possible so again i wouldn't say
it's a complete zero chance the boys could be found in the lost boys cave but
(31:44):
honestly it's probably less than a chance of terry hill being the person that
did it so yeah so but keep that in mind if If it's not going to be there.
It's going to be somewhere else. And that's why we need your help.
Yeah. And if you go back to, once again, Billy's story, I don't think it would be complicated.
It would have been complicated for them to find it. It was more like,
remember, because they had curfews, they had to be somewhere.
(32:06):
So, hey, like before we get home, we still got 40 minutes. This is running now
real quick. Let's just check it out real quick and then we'll leave.
And because, you know, from all accounts, like it looks like they were heading back home.
But if it was that close, like, why not just, hey, man, I just got to see it
one more time. Maybe there's gold or something. Now, you have to remember,
too, all the stories that are circulating.
You know, these kids are adventurers, they're explorers. So,
(32:26):
you know, it's ideal that, you know, a lot of this stuff, I mean,
you guys even closed down a road to do resistivity just to kind of get those types of things.
So, I mean, this is a really intense type of search with LIDAR and resistivity.
And now we're talking underground LIDAR. So what Chris is saying is you drill
a hole, you shove the stick down there.
And what this does is it spins really quick and
(32:49):
it will map the entire cavern in the entire void
and it'll just give you this whole entire it'll light it all up and you can
be able to see a 3d map of what is down there what it looks like and so it is
just a really cool thing but like once again we don't want to put up we've been
hinting at doing a gofundme but we want to get all the prices right and we want
to do a line item so you guys know that this is what it's going for.
(33:22):
Yeah. It's not for us.
Countless hours trying to put the show back together. And we're getting upwards
(33:45):
of 500 downloads still every week.
And that's from episodes that are well back in the day now.
So who knows when that one person that may have the information that we need
is going to get a hold of this finally and be able to contact us.
So keeping that up and keeping those servers running still and keeping things
maintained is going to give us an ever so better chance of maybe just cracking
(34:06):
it finally and finding that lead that we need to move forward with.
So, but yeah, our goal honestly is, is hopefully it's a volunteer donation thing.
If it's not, then we're going to come back and talk to you guys about how you
guys could help us with the next step.
Because I honestly, this is, this is the oh boy moment because not only that,
but the people that have seen this stuff are all super excited.
(34:30):
And there's a bunch of people that are in the know-how and the know about what we're looking at.
And they are very, very excited.
Intrigued and encouraged and excited about the potential of what this could possibly be.
So it's like Frankie said, we're going to get that six inch hole.
We're going to dig 45 feet in the ground. We're going to put this LIDAR down there.
(34:50):
You can see it. Curse of Oak Island has used this technology before,
but it was in the water. They had a cavern that they went into.
They were able to map a 3D image. They were actually able to see boxes.
There was a box in one of these rooms.
They were able to see some different things in there. And this is no
different than what we're looking at so the technology is there to where
we can literally drop this thing if it's a huge cavern we
(35:11):
can find that out pretty quick and then see what is in the
cavern too without having to necessarily put a person down there so also gives
us a chance to drop a camera down too so we'll have that technology as well
so we'll drop lidar and a camera down there and see what it looks like so but
we got to drill a hole first yeah yeah i mean there's there's a stage to this
you know this this aspect of like well what happens if they are down there.
(35:33):
Well, we cross that bridge when we get there, you know, and it's,
it's gonna, it's, that would probably take a little bit more time and it'll
probably involve a lot more people.
And we're talking, you know, possibly county sheriffs again,
the police, possibly forensic teams, even the FBI might want to get involved
in this. This is a missing persons case.
In the state of Missouri, there is no statute of limitations on missing people.
(35:57):
The case is always open. It stays open. You've heard from several sheriffs that
we've interviewed, people that, you know, Brad Stinson, who's just been the,
the entire Rawls County Sheriff Department has been a blessing to us,
always has been. I still keep in touch with those guys.
They, you know, they, they care so much about the community as a whole,
as it stands today, as much as they did, you know, back then.
(36:19):
So the community is very tight. The Hannibal Police Department,
once again, you know, coming off a very terrible documentary that was done.
I think they've kind of gone back into the light now.
We've always been shoulder to shoulder and brother brother to brother with police departments.
And we always follow the lead. And even the state agencies that we're working
with right now, we follow their lead.
And that's why we have to be careful and a little cryptic. You know that me
(36:42):
and Chris, if we could, we would tell you.
And this is not malarkey. This is where we're at. And we were excited.
And I'm like, you know what?
It's time to do a show. It's time to update you guys. And hopefully,
you know, in the next month here, hopefully we can put up another episode or
we can, you know, maybe dive into the past, Do a little, maybe a little get
together, maybe something live on Facebook and we can just take some questions.
(37:04):
Something to just keep you guys, you know, interactive and keep that flow coming
into the podcast because it does help us.
I mean, Wild Quincy is Chris's other podcast, which does exceptionally well.
It's a very cool podcast. They've gone down some very paranormal rabbit holes
and some true crime paranormal stuff that I've been listening to and ascertaining.
So make sure that, you know, you're checking them out on Wild Quincy.
(37:24):
They do some cool stuff too. And then I have Haunted Garage,
which we've covered some very strange stories here in Missouri.
You know, we're, we're, we're continuing to do that. It keeps our voices.
It keeps, and we learn something new by doing podcasts.
I mean, if you listen to our first episode to now, you can see the mic improvements,
you can see the sound design improvements and you learn by doing.
(37:45):
And that's the other thing that I would want to say is thank you.
Thank you for, for sticking with us. Thank you for, you know,
being on this, you know, this, this find for us is huge.
And every one of you out there is a part of it. you know, whether you donated
$5 or gave us a high five or gave us a private message saying,
hey guys, I really care about what you're doing. I'm praying for you guys.
(38:06):
You know, whether you know the family or you don't, whether you're living in
Wisconsin, I know we have a follower from Wisconsin. I just approved it.
If you're listening across the globe in California and New York or Miami,
wherever you guys are, thank you.
Thank you for being a part of what we're doing here.
And we have not forgotten about the boys.
It's just, it's a situation where it's It's not as easy to kind of navigate the waters.
(38:30):
Reading back through all the old material and some of the stuff,
I mean, you know, some of these things are reminiscent of, you know,
I don't know if you guys have ever seen this meme before, but it's a meme of
all the caves in America.
And then right on top of that is everyone that's been missing and still missing.
And you can see the coordinates are all close to caves.
(38:52):
So people go missing in caves all the time. So this is nothing new,
but this is the case of cases.
When you visit Hannibal, Missouri, according to what me and Chris had just read
about opening up our discussion groups to new people, that's what they're hearing
when they're visiting Hannibal.
They're hearing about this. They're hearing, oh, you got to hear about the Lost Boys of Hannibal.
(39:13):
There's a podcast. There's a book. There's all these things.
So it's kind of cool that me and Chris are part of this history in the likeness
of not fame, but in the likeness of we're really trying to do our due diligence
for Denise, for the families.
I know Billy Dean has reached out to certain people recently.
And if you don't know who Billy Dean is, Billy Dean was Craig Dowell's stepbrother.
(39:36):
And he has said numerous times that he's very hopeful that we are going to find
them and that he prays every day that there's going to be some type of resolve.
We have been not luckily involved or finding Billy Dean.
If you're listening, Billy Dean, we'd love to talk to you. It doesn't have to
be on a podcast, but we'd just love to pick your brain too, because you could
have information about the boys that we don't have.
(39:59):
And I just did want to mention that because I was listening to a podcast today.
And it's funny, you listen, Chris, to Lost Boys of Hannibal all over YouTube.
There's these 10 minute videos and they always give us a shout out,
which I think is awesome.
Because my friend's like, man, And they're using your stuff.
I'm like, no, they're helping us.
They're drawing attention to this. It's not about me and Chris. It's about the boys.
And so I love when people do it. I mean, there's a really funny one about,
(40:21):
you know, the ghost Amanda led the boys into a cave so she could have ghost friends.
But, you know, aside from that, and then there's the big foot stuff,
the cryptids. I'm sorry, cryptid people.
I know I made a post not too long ago and everybody got mad at me,
so I deleted it. But I just thought it was funny.
But I think that, like, you know, making a podcast about Momo and the Lost Boys
is just not in our agenda.
(40:43):
It never has been. him so we did do
an episode about that though it was one of those one of
those far left like weird stuff we've heard kind
of episodes so that was that we covered that a little bit so
hey frankie before we get wrapped up there's one other thing i did want to point
out real quick and that's one of the going back to another one of the stories
that was was kind of surfaced around in windgate's book and talked about in
(41:05):
different circles and that has to do with during the same time when the boys
went missing that was also obviously when the construction of highway 79 was happening.
But it was also when the viaduct that goes across the railroad tracks in downtown
Hannibal was being built.
And one of the stories was, well, maybe the boys went across this viaduct,
they just put in some risers or some pillars in there, and maybe the boys fell into the pillars.
(41:31):
Well, we have, of course, people that work for MoDOT. I asked that question, like, is this possible?
And they're like, there's no way this is possible, because there's way too too
much rebar into that in those pillars for anything to fall in there,
literally alone of a 5'10 boy and three on top of that.
Now we do have the proof that there is absolutely nothing because after 50 plus
(41:52):
years, they have tore down that viaduct and are replacing it with a brand new one.
All the pillars, everything's been tore down and ripped up.
There has been no evidence of any sort of human remains in any of it.
So we can officially mark that rabbit hole off.
We need some sort of a cheer or something right here, Frankie,
(42:13):
because that is something that we can officially take off the list because there
was nothing found when they tore down the fire department.
Yeah. And that's great.
I'm glad that we kind of, you know, dot at the I and across the T on that one.
The other one too, that we still get message about, and I think it's because
people are listening to season two and three, is the actual construction company
(42:34):
that's building the road.
Oh, yes. And some of the salacious stuff that happened with that company,
we still really have not gotten any leads on any of that stuff of what happened.
And there, there is a scenario where people believe that it's possible that
instead of the kids getting, you know, locked into a cave and the shell fell
down, that they hit it and they did know about it. Well, here's the thing.
(42:59):
There's too many people. There's too many people working at the construction
grounds that if something like that would have happened there,
there would have been a whistleblower in my opinion.
The other, the other thing too, is that, you know, they moved the body and they
left him somewhere in a rubble pile, which is not far. It's actually in Hannibal.
We actually know the location of where all the excess road that they dug out.
(43:19):
We know where that place is.
And then if by some reason they're there, you know, so yes, we do.
Do we do still think about that stuff it's not
on top of agenda especially after all the
work that's been done here in the last year since we've been podcasting i think
it's almost been a little over a year since you guys heard from us so it is
something that i want you guys to think yes we do think about that stuff it's
(43:43):
not that it's off our radar there's just a list of priorities that chris has
always kept that this is where our focus needs to be.
And that's kind of where we are
today. Chris, I don't know if you have any messages or anything out there.
Yeah, we're still on. Well, it's a good point. We're still on phase one.
There's always was three phases involved with this and that what you're talking about.
I still hold on to the thought about Tobin having something to do with it.
(44:08):
And I think there's a percentage that can be still held on to that theory.
But honestly, right now, the lead we have is so huge. I mean,
this is kind of comparable to us finding a sinkhole in somebody's yard a couple of years ago.
You know, that was that was number one, like that was our number one lead.
And then we found out, well, it's the Lost Boys Cave. It's not necessarily a
new passage. And so that kind of checkmarked that off.
(44:30):
But in doing so led to some new paths or new new ways of going.
But it always been three phases a set. The second phase has been going out to
where the Rebel pile is and seeing what we can do out there with either some
sort of ground penetrating radar resistivity or something along those lines.
And then finally, the third phase, which is still in thoughts.
Hopefully we don't have to get there. Hopefully you find them before then.
(44:53):
But is to take a closer look at Lover's Leap because there is a whole nother
section of limestone up above higher than what we're talking about that does
have some possible cave passages in it.
And they were explored to somewhat of an
extent in 67 but not to the extent what it can
be today with technology so that is going
to be still phase three of taking a look at that if we need to get to that point
(45:15):
but let's hope our percentages are high enough on the other ones that maybe
we can just knock it out with this next thing that we're looking at doing but
frankie think about this for just a second before we wrap up we have literally
dug a football field size field oh.
I have literally been underneath the ground walking in cave passages.
And this all came from doing a podcast.
(45:36):
It's crazy. And the meetings you've been on with all these city executives and
these people in the state, they're, you know, making our roads better.
And that's the thing, too, about MoDOT is, like, these guys work.
They care. They really care about what they do, guys. I mean,
these guys are thinking about road construction all the time and safety,
(46:00):
especially, you know, Chris, as you guys know, he not only teaches,
but he also still drives trucks.
So he, he, he's on these roads. He, he sees it firsthand.
Like when he's going down a road that looks like Baghdad, I mean,
he knows he's thankful for roads like 79 and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, that's where I would be. Also just this one thing too,
what Chris was saying, where this cavern is, where he was at,
(46:21):
there were marks in, in Lost Boys Cave.
There's marks on the wall from the cavers. So they were down there.
This new area, we probably know for a fact that nobody's been down there.
Except maybe the boys. Except maybe the boys. So we'll leave it there today.
It's been awesome. It's been fun to actually do a podcast with Chris again.
(46:42):
It's been a while. Yeah, it has been. So from all of us here at Lost Boys of
Hannibal, we hope to be talking to you real soon.
I'm Frankie. I'm Chris. We'll be seeing you.
Music.
At approximately 5.15 p.m. on May 10th in 1967, three boys ages 11,
13, and 14 explore a cave near their house in Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri.
Brothers Billy Hoag, Joel Hoag, and friend Craig Dow are never seen again.
(00:20):
It is now 52 years later.
This is their story.
Music.
God only knows what I'd be without you,
If you should ever leave me The light would still go on, believe me,
(00:44):
The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me?
God only knows what I'd be without you.
(01:07):
Welcome back to the Lost Boys of Hannibal. Me and Chris were the ones that went
lost there for a little while, but we're back now. Hi, Chris.
Hey, how you doing, Frankie? Good, good. And we can't promise you we'll be doing episodes every week.
I know we've been getting this demand on, you know, the Facebooks and we get
those little messages that come in every now and then. It's like,
are you guys like still doing this?
(01:27):
We are. We are still doing it. Yeah. And this episode, the return of Occam's
razor, right? So least amount of assumptions.
Listen to, you know, the people around the area. Listen to the actual people
that maybe went missing, Chris.
Yeah. Yeah. Stories that we've listened to and talked about years ago starting
to resurface like, oh my gosh, this might have more importance than what we thought. Yeah.
(01:51):
And it gets crazy. Chris has been, like I said, we have never left boots on
the ground. He's been working with a lot of different government assets.
I'm not going into names or anything like that. We're also not even going into locations.
Doing this episode, we are walking a tightrope. And the reason why we feel the
need to do it is because we logged on recently and we're getting like 70 to
(02:14):
80 hits a day. People are still listening to our, our podcast.
We're really close to 400,000 downloads. So it's like, you know,
we have to, we have to refresh this.
We have to give you guys tidbits on what's going on and we can probably maybe
tune in and do stuff every month. Just kind of give you something.
Maybe it's not going to be always 35 minutes or 40 minutes, but maybe it's like
(02:35):
15 minutes so you guys know that, Hey, we're still doing this.
We're still with the family.
There's been no, there's some weird
stuff on mine, Chris. I don't know if you've read it like I have, but.
Do you have a falling out with the family? No, the Hoag's very much love us.
Chris actually loved the Hoag so much he actually moved to Hannibal.
So that's how close he wanted to be. Had to be closer.
You know, Frankie, one of the things you just said, though, and I think it points
(02:56):
out, too, is we started this podcast.
First, very first reason we started this podcast was because we were curious
about the story. And it was an interesting story.
And then I don't know if we ever really realized that we were going to get as
deeply involved in it as we have, which I think is awesome.
And I'm glad we have. And I've had a lot of comments from friends and family
that are rooting, you know, hoping that we can solve this someday.
(03:19):
And I think, you know, to take those reins is awesome.
But then it became something else with this podcast. And it became something
to where we were looking for more than just us telling the story.
We were looking for people to help us and help us create answers to the story and find the boys.
And I think that's no different than what we're going to be asking for here.
Because, again, we are in that mode of like we do need things.
(03:39):
And we'll get into details of that here in a few minutes. But,
you know, just just, you know, the cooperation, the collaboration with all the
people we've had helping us over the last few years.
You know, we have a Slack channel that we focus on. We have a bunch of information on there.
We have law enforcement officials. We have, you know, people from government agencies.
We've got all these different people helping us out, trying to solve the mystery
(04:01):
and even the family as well that trying to find the boys.
So, yeah, you know, we did it for we obviously want to give you guys an update
because it's been a while. But then also, you know, maybe we finally get in
the right ears that we can get that person that can help us make the next step forward.
Yeah, and we're going to discuss that next step really huge.
A little bit of housekeeping.
(04:22):
We have not done that either. Going to about 2,500 followers on our main Facebook
page and about 1,400 in the discussion group, which is a private group where
you guys get to basically talk everything. So welcome all new members.
And this is we're recording Sunday, June 9th. So we just went on there and approved 13 working.
That were just sitting in there. So sorry. And then we had a podcast that actually
(04:45):
mentioned us. We had some really cool feedback as to how they found us.
And it looks like Spotify is actually recommending us based on people's listens.
So that is just cool. I will be expecting a $1 check from them.
I know Joe Rogan just signed another $200 million account with them.
I think we can at least get $200.
I mean, what do you think? For sure. At least 20 cents.
(05:07):
It is nice to be recognized. organized. Now, the other thing that part of housekeeping
is we have, and I know Aaron Menke has done this too, we are on Podbeam and
we open up our podcast to ads.
You might be hearing presidential and local and state government people that
are basically saying, hey, vote for me. This guy is terrible.
(05:29):
Me and Chris do not have a political affiliation. Those ads,
I mean, it could come from Biden. It can come from Trump, could come from your local government.
We just want to give you guys a heads up that that is something that they pay
us maybe eight bucks or something like that a month for it.
And it just goes towards the servers that we need to kind of keep the sustained pod beam.
You can have a free one. We don't, we like, we want to see our analytics.
(05:52):
So we've always kind of kept this in there. I think actually Chris has mentioned
that on wild Quincy that, you know, we have server fees and we want to make
sure that we're doing those things.
So if you do hear a political ad, if you do hear those things,
that is not coming from me and Chris.
That is just what Podbean is kind of throwing at us.
Now, you can turn that off, but we said, nah. I mean, now's the time to kind
(06:12):
of keep that on and see how much we can turn and burn, because this episode
is really gonna predicate some money that we're gonna need to raise in order to do,
this really big step in finding the boys.
And as I led off in the beginning here, Occam's Razor, right?
Least amount of assumptions.
There's a story, Chris, right?
Unless you have anything else. No. Well, it's funny. We had this.
(06:36):
We've been talking for about an hour before we started recording and going through
all the data and information and all this stuff.
And Frankie said this, and I'll take it as a compliment.
It was like, yeah, you kept a lot of good notes. And I'm like going through
all the notes from all the old episodes.
I came across this very amazing, like, holy cow, like this aha light bulb moment.
(06:57):
And then I clicked away from it. I can't find it again, Frankie. It's in there.
Yeah, go figure. It's a new computer. It's a new computer. Yeah, exactly.
So, yeah, lead it up to this, Frankie. Give us what you got and see if I can
find out why you're doing that.
Yeah. So, Monday, as you guys know, if you're avid listeners,
and we have some new listeners that have just kind of like crashed and burned
(07:19):
and just kind of every day to work, listened to every episode,
and then they got to that season four where it was like, what happened?
Why'd they stop? If you're that person or you've re-listened to the podcast,
which we do have those people, You might have heard of this story.
We all know that on Monday night, they got their motors oiled when they got
home by the dad saying, why were you out so late? Why are you going into the
(07:42):
caves alone without telling us?
And they kind of got reprimanded. And so they didn't go Tuesday.
But on Monday, when they did go, they discovered something. They found something.
Chris? Yeah. So one of the things that we talked about, and it goes all the
way back to the dig part three. So we are talking season one.
(08:04):
So here it is. This is the storyline for this individual called Mary Jo Powell.
And in Lost Boys of Hannibal book by author John Wingate, she was interviewed by John.
And in the interview, she said that on May 9th, she was with her two sons and
husband on Hannibal's south side collecting rent from tenants.
While her husband was collecting the money, Billy Hogue approached the car to
(08:26):
talk with her two sons, Tony and Randy.
As Mary Jo listened on, Billy explained to Tony and Randy that he and Joey discovered
a new cave and wanted them to go with him tomorrow, which was May 10th, to explore it.
Billy pointed out to the area of Lover's Leap and explained that there's a bulldozer
That's been going through and breaking area, breaking through the area where
(08:49):
they broke through, made a hole on the hillside and it revealed a large crack on the hill.
He and Joey, and this is by far the most important sentence out of this whole thing.
He and Joey saw that it opened up to a big room.
Okay. Billy then asked Mary Jo if Tony and Randy could go with them tomorrow.
And she went, no, it's too dangerous.
(09:11):
And then of course, Mary Jo explained in the interview to John that she went
to the police after the boys went missing, but they just weren't that interested in her story.
So, so yeah. So now we get to the point, Frankie, of why that one sentence of
he and Joey saw that it opened up to a big room is important.
Well, it is. And that our conversation that we had, I'm a talker as you guys
(09:37):
know, and, and so is Chris.
Chris is a great talker as well. But I was speechless as Chris was going through
the materials that he's been doing up there.
Now, before I get into that, I want you, I want my crew, my true crammers.
I do get these messages all the time.
I have completely ruled out John Wayne Gacy. He's not even a percentage anymore.
There's just no possible physical way he could have done it.
(10:01):
And the new adaption book that came out and we got into a kind of a back and forth.
I think that was the biggest highlight kind of this last, the end of last year
and a little bit this year was that he came out with something else.
And allegedly where the boys are buried is now in somebody's front yard, which.
Yeah. Not to mention we dug up a whole football field for him and then he changes
(10:23):
his story. But yeah, you know, for some other day, I guess. I'm glad we could do that for him.
Yeah. A whole football field. And it is documented and it is recorded and we
do have it on video. It did happen, guys.
We have drone footage and there is nothing at the cement plant.
So if you're just reading that book or just finished it, there's nothing there.
We dug exactly where, because we were actually with the mediums that told us
(10:44):
where that actually was.
So there is no kind of vac skating. So that, that part of it,
John Wayne Gacy actually is what the first phone call that I got from Chris was about.
We have since gone so far and beyond into the realm of reality where it could
not have been John Wayne Gacy.
Now that brings up another one, which is Tommy Terrence Hill.
This is a person that is definitely still a person of interest.
(11:08):
I would say I've basically dwindled it probably down to one to 2% of it actually being a possibility.
I'm keeping him in there because of his history in Texas, where he was a youth
minister, where he does get, you know, bringing kids in, gathering the trust of the family.
And then he gets pinched with these two kids that he, you know,
(11:29):
does some terribly sexual assaults to both children.
And he would serve 15 years and ends up dying in prison. And so we have all that report.
We've actually posted those pictures. There is no other, I looked at,
you know, Floyd, Lloyd Atwood again today, the person of interest that actually
the Missouri cops and the chief of police were actually looking at and, hey, if we see this guy.
(11:50):
And so what Atwood was all about was there was this open cavern as well.
There was this place where he saw the boys inside Murphy's cave.
And so Bill Karras, which is what he calls him. So William or Bill,
that's not even his real name either, but whatever.
So if you got to remember the last episode, me and Chris did.
But the, the, the thing is they walk in there and actually what he thought was
(12:12):
a hand was actually a rock that did actually look like a hand.
So this is kind of just giving you a backdrop into the things that we've followed
and we're just not spending the time there anymore.
Now, if you guys know the Hill family in Moberly, if you know anything about
those people, the John Wayne Gacy stuff for me is like, it put a,
I mean, put a, put a, put a thumbnail on it.
(12:34):
It's, it's over. put the nail in the coffin let's move on there's just no possible
way Tommy Terrence Hill maybe there's somebody out there that knows maybe there's
a guy that served time with him that was his prison mate maybe he had mentioned
something that's the only thing that I would kind of gather from that type of thing.
For us, the more we went down with Julie Angel and a bunch of other people who
(12:55):
have really kind of carried us into this way of the geospace, right?
So where the speleological sense of it, I'll say it for Chris,
but the sense of what we've been able to do has really led us to more of,
yes, the true crime stuff is fascinating. Yes, the true crime stuff is a draw.
But we have to stick to the facts as they happen. We have to keep the case relevant
(13:19):
to what we have in front of us.
And I guess we were, we did the same thing the cops did, Chris.
I guess we heard the girl's story, Mrs. Powell's story, and we kind of looked the other way.
And today we looked at something and I'll have Chris go through it because he
probably knows more than I do, but I just want you guys to know I was speechless.
(13:40):
And I was, I was very reminiscent of like, do you remember a story,
Chris, like way back when he's like, I do remember that story.
Story so chris and it took a while to find it
which is crazy too because i i was like man where was that at
where was that i couldn't find it but yeah i
think you brought up a couple great points i i think it going back
to the true crime aspect i find it funny that i've
(14:01):
always been my percentages have always been heavy heavy
heavy cave it's always been that way it's
still that way however my i think my percentage
on terry hill is probably higher than yours now because there's
so many similarities of like
why do you have somebody that ends up doing what he did has
a history of doing it from back in the day is part
(14:22):
of the story about the boys he actually is a part of the conversation he is
here when it happens it's just like you know he he had i guarantee you i i could
pretty much guarantee at least i feel like i can guarantee that they probably
had interactions like those boys probably at some point in time had interactions with terry hill Hill.
Literally, there's articles in the newspaper saying that Terry Hill had supper
(14:48):
with a family just down the street from the Hoag's.
So, I don't know. My percentage is... But again...
He has no proof. We've never heard he killed anybody. So you're going down a
rabbit hole there. And then you got three on top of that.
So yeah, okay. But anyway, let's go back to what we were talking about.
So the percentages are definitely high for the cave aspect.
(15:08):
And so let me lay this all out for you guys, because it's going to be a lot
to kind of soak in about why that sentence is so important.
But I also have to kind of walk, as Frankie said earlier, kind of a fine line
because there's some information I cannot give out. out just going to cause
more headaches, if you will, than anything, if I do, which that's not our goal here.
(15:29):
And so I want to stay away from that. But let's go to the basics first.
You guys are all well aware that the Lost Boys Cave has been reopened.
And that happened up, ironically, three years ago today from when we're recording.
This was the first time that's more than anybody's been in it since 1967.
But we explored it in 67. We explored it in 67. Again, explored it just us three years ago.
(15:53):
And in that process, now, since that three years have happened,
the Missouri Geological Survey, some of the Missouri cavers have gotten involved
and they've started to remap it.
We're getting close and it's still been an ongoing process of remapping this
cave because it is a lot of work.
It is a very extensive, very extensive cave.
(16:14):
Frankie, you saw the picture of Kind of an outline of what they have.
And it's much bigger than what you probably even thought. Yeah.
Like I said, I was pretty speechless. And then Chris is kind of showing me what
exactly what I'm looking at, right?
Because the GIS stuff is something that we do in my line of work,
(16:35):
but it's mostly dealt with addresses and making sure that mail and ballots are getting to people.
People so looking at it from from this aspect
is it's not even like
far-fetched it's not far-fetched it's
it's just you look at it and you see this gaping and i think that when you first
explained it to me you had it reversed and then you're like oh wait yeah yeah
(16:58):
like wait wait no that's not right yeah the red actually means that this you
know and it's a void yeah yes this void of
uncertainty or maybe very certain that this might be the void that,
you know, Billy might have a...
So let's dig into this a little bit farther. So again, Missouri,
(17:19):
there's some cavers that are from the state that are doing this mapping,
which is great because now it's getting mapped.
It's more than just a crude drawing that happened from back in the day.
Now it's an actual legitimate map cave, which is going to be great.
So they're still working on it. It's a slow process.
They're not done yet. So that tells you how long this takes.
But in doing so, we're also
(17:42):
finding out that when we go to the statement from Mary Jo Powell saying that
her that Joey actually told her kids that there was an opening to a very big
room that doesn't match up with what we're seeing.
All right. So what that means is what has been mapped so far does not show any
(18:06):
large rooms whatsoever. These are narrow passages.
You can get through them and there's a lot of passages, but there is no such thing as a big room.
This has been a storyline for a while, actually, because even back in season
one, we discussed this multiple times that we heard of a big room.
But when we heard this story from Mary Jo, that we believed that it was going
(18:27):
to be up in the next layer, which there's another limestone layer higher up on Lover's Leaps Hill.
And we always kind of of assumed okay well maybe he's talking about up
there higher maybe that's where this big large room's at
so we kind of always defaulted that's where the room was at we just
don't know where it's at right so now knowing what we know and with the mapping
almost finished we don't have a big room frankie you don't so we have to go
(18:55):
to the next point of well if it's not where we know it is,
then maybe it's where it's, we don't know where it is. Exactly. And so.
And just to point out, just to point out, Chris, you would know more than I
would because I am not going to go down in that same way.
The main street was this tight. You got stuck for a second and I, nope.
(19:18):
So definitely not large cavernous places, spatial relationships,
just very tight quarters. So.
Lost Boys Cave, you may, the best spots that I was at, you may be able to extend
your arms out all the way.
Maybe. But that was the extent of how wide it was going to be.
Now, height-wise, it's like 15 foot tall.
I mean, they're really tall cave passages. But width-wise, not big rooms. Right.
(19:43):
So again, this is where we have to do the tight line. There was work that has
been done, and I can't tell you where it came from or how we got access to it.
But there has been work that has been done that has shown us that there is possibly
some areas of interest that may officially show a big room.
(20:04):
And again to kind of
lightly go into this is that
back in 67 even back in regular times the
cavers believed that where the caves ended that
was where they ended and there was nothing more to it well we found out that
well how is that really true and julie and i have had many conversations about
(20:24):
this you know julie is our chief chief geologist here for lost boys and we've
had this discussion about well it doesn't really make sense why the caves would
just randomly end and that's it.
Well, now we're kind of maybe have some proof that there is a large room close
by where the boys would have went to.
So let me, I'm going to lay this out, Frankie, you probably do a better job
(20:45):
than I will, but let me give you just a recap. I was kind of explaining this
to you before we started.
Last thing we saw was the boys 515 sitting on the second terrace of Lover's Leap.
They're looking down at where the construction's happening. There's a
bulldozer working across it and doing some work we know in the
previous day the boys would play like a game where
they would run into the hole before the bulldozer got there and
(21:07):
then they would come back out right what if the game was
being played again on may 10th okay and instead this time they go to the large
room which is going to the right instead of going to the left and let's just
say that bulldozer came back across and all of a sudden now a hole collapses
or a roof collapses and it blocks them in okay Okay.
(21:28):
So what if it all comes down to that the searchers were going left and not going right?
And that's because they believed, and we have even conversations with Denise
that had back when there was a chance for her to talk with some cavers that searched back in 67,
that they said, well, I wish we would have looked at that breakdown because
(21:49):
there was a couple areas that we didn't dig and we probably should have dug.
That makes you wonder, okay, was it a collapse that blocked off a passage and
that's where the boys went?
And now we have proof that there may be a large room on the other side of that breakdown.
But even to present day, some of the people mapping the cave don't think,
you know, today they don't know because they kept saying, no,
(22:11):
no, they don't, they stop right there, but, but they don't.
And what we're, what we're starting to prove with resistivity and the stuff
that, that, that Chris has been doing on the ground there is starting to prove
that, that there's more to this.
Remember that we said, you know, and some of you guys are like,
hey, I just heard this yesterday because you listened to a podcast that we did three years ago.
But for some of our older fans, remember what we told you, assumptions are death,
(22:37):
right? We don't make assumptions, right?
We want to theorize. We want to say, well, maybe possibly, but when somebody
shuts something down, like it can't be possible, well, that's when I get skeptical.
Like, why can't it be, right? Because Julie was never under that assumption.
And Julia's never said that that's, I don't think Mark's even said that.
But when you shut things down, you know, that gets into a whole other,
(23:01):
you know, rabbit hole, if you will.
But the, this idea that coming back to grips with looking at what the boys were
talking about, looking at this game of,
you know, hide from the bulldozer, which talk about a generation that, man,
really just risked their lives.
(23:23):
Just kind of going in and out of those dead basic holes.
But also, Chris, I want to mention too that a collapse with blue shale or any
shale could have happened yesterday or 100,000 years ago, and you really wouldn't know.
You really wouldn't know. So for some of them going down, they're like,
no, no, no, that was like that yesterday. That was like that yesterday.
Because to the bulldozer, when the cave is... So what Chris is saying is that
(23:46):
you're entering this cave, you're looking at it, and then maybe one of them says, what is that?
And they keep walking forward and forward and forward, and this whole thing
opens up. Like this is it, this is what I was telling you guys.
And all of a sudden that bulldozer, they just don't make it.
And then boom, and just like that, that blue shell just crushes in on itself.
And then now they're trapped in this couch.
And we can prove that now. We can actually, you can see that there's something, we can prove a void.
(24:10):
We can prove that there is something that these, that they might've stumbled
on, on that Monday night and basically hype that up on a Tuesday.
And, you know, Mrs. Powell and her children were saved. There could have been five lost boys.
And that's what makes that getting back to Occam's razor, right?
How do three kids go missing? And I was talking to Chris earlier today,
(24:32):
looking at the old police report, Craig was five, 10. Okay.
Joey was five, 10. Billy was five, six.
These are pretty big boys. I mean, they were thin, but they're tall.
Like it's a man size people.
Okay. And you got three of them. The chances of somebody abducting that is very
(24:53):
rare when you're a tiny, small kid and you're like six and seven years old and
you know, you're still four foot.
It's very easy. but not two, five, 10. So once again, it kind of diminishes
this idea that somebody just like kidnapped three large people.
Well, two large boys and one large, small one. So, but how do three people go
missing in an instant, right?
(25:14):
Well, they're just playing and they run into something and it,
you know, the sinkhole has also come up a couple of times too,
Chris, this idea of a sinkhole and it can play.
It's actually mentioned in some of those diagrams that some areas up there,
there's other areas too.
So this is not just one area we're talking about.
There are many areas that if you look at the stories of people on the ground
(25:37):
in 67 that they're telling, it's not like today where somebody is trying to
get likes on YouTube or TikTok.
People are actually trying to tell stories of things that they actually heard
and things they actually saw.
And the revelation today, and I think I reached out to you last week is like,
hey, we should do an episode.
You're like, yeah, cool. Let's do it. And to look at where we are today versus
(25:59):
where we are four years ago and how much ground we've covered and just looking
at the mapping that's being done and the people that are helping us and these
state organizations that have gotten behind it and are really concerned.
We've never been turned away.
And I would always say that there are so many, and I know the world is weird
right now, but there are so many great people that still want to help us find these boys.
(26:20):
And if that goes along the track of, of, of what they're doing anyway,
then they've always been very gracious and helpful to us because like you guys
know, this has never been about, you know, me and Chris,
you know, holding up a Peabody award for best podcast, which we might,
if this, if this void does come to pass. And so it is pretty insane.
(26:42):
Yeah. It's not been one of those things where I, you know, Oh.
We it's it's become more of
a thing now where we just want to find them
it's just we we were farther along and we've said
this before but we're farther along now than when anybody's ever
been we've said that even from 67 nobody's gotten as
far i feel as we have gotten especially with the
(27:04):
technology and i think we've talked about that since the very first season
is that technology is going to be what wins this and technology
is going to be what finds these boys and we're still search for
that and and i think frankie where we need to go from here though is that
ask part and the ask part is is
that the you know we keep running into these these
these roadblocks if you will or dead or
(27:25):
dead end passages if you will but what we're
looking for is we need equipment and that's
where we're getting a roadblock out right now is because the type of
equipment we need to get is not easy to get
and what that equipment is is we need a drill that
can bore straight down and it can do a six inch vertical hole and
it can go about 45 feet in the ground and so that seems
(27:47):
like an easy ask but it's not so easy when you have most
of them are full-size trucks and we can't get a full-size truck to
where we need to go yes there is there is one that chris sent me today like
it was gonna oh we'll just purchase one yeah for 30 000 so we'll just raise
we'll do a we'll do a we'll do a go fund me we need 29 000 and then we'll use
(28:08):
this one start drilling holes all over the place then. That's fine.
But so no, what we're looking for is something like that. There is a local company that has been asked.
I know a few people have already have asked them for us. And I'm not going to
give that company name away because I don't.
Do anything like that. As far as I know, they'd be the only ones that I'm aware
of that would be able to do it here in Hannibal, but they don't have the equipment to do it either.
(28:29):
So we're looking beyond that. We do have some names for some St.
Louis companies that have dealt in this, and so we're hoping to get in touch with them.
But if you know anybody that can do that, again, it can't be like...
So again, some of you listeners probably are from the rural areas,
and so you've seen a well being drilled before.
Usually when they drill a well for water, It's a full-size truck that is being
(28:52):
used for the drill, and we can't use that. It's too big.
It needs to be one of these that you can kind of drive around with remote or
ride on the back of. It can't be a full-size truck.
Again, it needs to go 40 foot in the ground. It needs to be at least a six-inch
diameter hole, and that's what we're looking for because we have an X marks the spot.
Literally, Frankie, we just need to be able to do a little spinny thing to go into that X.
(29:17):
Yeah, and I'm actually going to post it on our Facebook page in case you need
more of a visual of what we're trying to describe,
because you might have seen, you know, stuff like Curse of Oak Island,
where these guys bring out these monster trucks with these huge drills on it.
That is not what we're looking for. We don't want to abolish the neighborhood.
(29:37):
Maybe we'll do that next, but we don't need a, like a 10 foot wide casing right now. So. Exactly.
Yeah. So I'm going to post that to our Facebook page. So you might have seen
that if you were on on Sunday night and now this episode is going to premiere
Tuesday. So you're like, what is that about?
And I'm just going to put, we will explain this.
Exactly. So that's what we're looking for. Again, if a company is willing.
(30:00):
To donate would be the ideal situation but if we need to go to the route that
somebody is willing to do it it may be that we have to ask for something else
down the road but we'll get to that point when we get there but this honestly
guys and i'm not trying to upsell this or anything is that this is probably
one of the best chances that i think that we have for the cave scenario,
(30:20):
out of anything possible especially when you really start to consider that the
missouri caving company or the groups that have been in there that have been
surveying the most likely location the boys are going to be at,
they're going and hitting every single inch of this whole cave system.
And they are not finding anything besides stuff from the 1967 search.
(30:42):
They're not finding anything from the boys. So that tells us the boys are probably
not in the easy to find places in Lost Boys Cave.
There's still a very, very minute chance they could find them.
I was mentioning this to Frankie that there are a
few areas in the cave where there are literal voids in
the ground and i'm not too sure they've been searched
very well yet so there are some chances and like
(31:03):
i told frankie too you got to remember like we
are on the top end of the limestone layer in the lost boys cave which
is about 15 foot to the ceiling it's got silt down
below but there was a couple areas when i was in there in 2021 that
i would put my foot on the floor and it felt like it was hollow underneath no
and like i told you and i remember if i see if i got my math on here it's about
(31:24):
60 feet of limestone layer so it's possible that you got 15 foot above maybe
three foot of silt and then probably what another 48 feet of nothing below you.
Yeah does not feel a little scary but it's possible so again i wouldn't say
it's a complete zero chance the boys could be found in the lost boys cave but
(31:44):
honestly it's probably less than a chance of terry hill being the person that
did it so yeah so but keep that in mind if If it's not going to be there.
It's going to be somewhere else. And that's why we need your help.
Yeah. And if you go back to, once again, Billy's story, I don't think it would be complicated.
It would have been complicated for them to find it. It was more like,
remember, because they had curfews, they had to be somewhere.
(32:06):
So, hey, like before we get home, we still got 40 minutes. This is running now
real quick. Let's just check it out real quick and then we'll leave.
And because, you know, from all accounts, like it looks like they were heading back home.
But if it was that close, like, why not just, hey, man, I just got to see it
one more time. Maybe there's gold or something. Now, you have to remember,
too, all the stories that are circulating.
You know, these kids are adventurers, they're explorers. So,
(32:26):
you know, it's ideal that, you know, a lot of this stuff, I mean,
you guys even closed down a road to do resistivity just to kind of get those types of things.
So, I mean, this is a really intense type of search with LIDAR and resistivity.
And now we're talking underground LIDAR. So what Chris is saying is you drill
a hole, you shove the stick down there.
And what this does is it spins really quick and
(32:49):
it will map the entire cavern in the entire void
and it'll just give you this whole entire it'll light it all up and you can
be able to see a 3d map of what is down there what it looks like and so it is
just a really cool thing but like once again we don't want to put up we've been
hinting at doing a gofundme but we want to get all the prices right and we want
to do a line item so you guys know that this is what it's going for.
(33:22):
Yeah. It's not for us.
Countless hours trying to put the show back together. And we're getting upwards
(33:45):
of 500 downloads still every week.
And that's from episodes that are well back in the day now.
So who knows when that one person that may have the information that we need
is going to get a hold of this finally and be able to contact us.
So keeping that up and keeping those servers running still and keeping things
maintained is going to give us an ever so better chance of maybe just cracking
(34:06):
it finally and finding that lead that we need to move forward with.
So, but yeah, our goal honestly is, is hopefully it's a volunteer donation thing.
If it's not, then we're going to come back and talk to you guys about how you
guys could help us with the next step.
Because I honestly, this is, this is the oh boy moment because not only that,
but the people that have seen this stuff are all super excited.
(34:30):
And there's a bunch of people that are in the know-how and the know about what we're looking at.
And they are very, very excited.
Intrigued and encouraged and excited about the potential of what this could possibly be.
So it's like Frankie said, we're going to get that six inch hole.
We're going to dig 45 feet in the ground. We're going to put this LIDAR down there.
(34:50):
You can see it. Curse of Oak Island has used this technology before,
but it was in the water. They had a cavern that they went into.
They were able to map a 3D image. They were actually able to see boxes.
There was a box in one of these rooms.
They were able to see some different things in there. And this is no
different than what we're looking at so the technology is there to where
we can literally drop this thing if it's a huge cavern we
(35:11):
can find that out pretty quick and then see what is in the
cavern too without having to necessarily put a person down there so also gives
us a chance to drop a camera down too so we'll have that technology as well
so we'll drop lidar and a camera down there and see what it looks like so but
we got to drill a hole first yeah yeah i mean there's there's a stage to this
you know this this aspect of like well what happens if they are down there.
(35:33):
Well, we cross that bridge when we get there, you know, and it's,
it's gonna, it's, that would probably take a little bit more time and it'll
probably involve a lot more people.
And we're talking, you know, possibly county sheriffs again,
the police, possibly forensic teams, even the FBI might want to get involved
in this. This is a missing persons case.
In the state of Missouri, there is no statute of limitations on missing people.
(35:57):
The case is always open. It stays open. You've heard from several sheriffs that
we've interviewed, people that, you know, Brad Stinson, who's just been the,
the entire Rawls County Sheriff Department has been a blessing to us,
always has been. I still keep in touch with those guys.
They, you know, they, they care so much about the community as a whole,
as it stands today, as much as they did, you know, back then.
(36:19):
So the community is very tight. The Hannibal Police Department,
once again, you know, coming off a very terrible documentary that was done.
I think they've kind of gone back into the light now.
We've always been shoulder to shoulder and brother brother to brother with police departments.
And we always follow the lead. And even the state agencies that we're working
with right now, we follow their lead.
And that's why we have to be careful and a little cryptic. You know that me
(36:42):
and Chris, if we could, we would tell you.
And this is not malarkey. This is where we're at. And we were excited.
And I'm like, you know what?
It's time to do a show. It's time to update you guys. And hopefully,
you know, in the next month here, hopefully we can put up another episode or
we can, you know, maybe dive into the past, Do a little, maybe a little get
together, maybe something live on Facebook and we can just take some questions.
(37:04):
Something to just keep you guys, you know, interactive and keep that flow coming
into the podcast because it does help us.
I mean, Wild Quincy is Chris's other podcast, which does exceptionally well.
It's a very cool podcast. They've gone down some very paranormal rabbit holes
and some true crime paranormal stuff that I've been listening to and ascertaining.
So make sure that, you know, you're checking them out on Wild Quincy.
(37:24):
They do some cool stuff too. And then I have Haunted Garage,
which we've covered some very strange stories here in Missouri.
You know, we're, we're, we're continuing to do that. It keeps our voices.
It keeps, and we learn something new by doing podcasts.
I mean, if you listen to our first episode to now, you can see the mic improvements,
you can see the sound design improvements and you learn by doing.
(37:45):
And that's the other thing that I would want to say is thank you.
Thank you for, for sticking with us. Thank you for, you know,
being on this, you know, this, this find for us is huge.
And every one of you out there is a part of it. you know, whether you donated
$5 or gave us a high five or gave us a private message saying,
hey guys, I really care about what you're doing. I'm praying for you guys.
(38:06):
You know, whether you know the family or you don't, whether you're living in
Wisconsin, I know we have a follower from Wisconsin. I just approved it.
If you're listening across the globe in California and New York or Miami,
wherever you guys are, thank you.
Thank you for being a part of what we're doing here.
And we have not forgotten about the boys.
It's just, it's a situation where it's It's not as easy to kind of navigate the waters.
(38:30):
Reading back through all the old material and some of the stuff,
I mean, you know, some of these things are reminiscent of, you know,
I don't know if you guys have ever seen this meme before, but it's a meme of
all the caves in America.
And then right on top of that is everyone that's been missing and still missing.
And you can see the coordinates are all close to caves.
(38:52):
So people go missing in caves all the time. So this is nothing new,
but this is the case of cases.
When you visit Hannibal, Missouri, according to what me and Chris had just read
about opening up our discussion groups to new people, that's what they're hearing
when they're visiting Hannibal.
They're hearing about this. They're hearing, oh, you got to hear about the Lost Boys of Hannibal.
(39:13):
There's a podcast. There's a book. There's all these things.
So it's kind of cool that me and Chris are part of this history in the likeness
of not fame, but in the likeness of we're really trying to do our due diligence
for Denise, for the families.
I know Billy Dean has reached out to certain people recently.
And if you don't know who Billy Dean is, Billy Dean was Craig Dowell's stepbrother.
(39:36):
And he has said numerous times that he's very hopeful that we are going to find
them and that he prays every day that there's going to be some type of resolve.
We have been not luckily involved or finding Billy Dean.
If you're listening, Billy Dean, we'd love to talk to you. It doesn't have to
be on a podcast, but we'd just love to pick your brain too, because you could
have information about the boys that we don't have.
(39:59):
And I just did want to mention that because I was listening to a podcast today.
And it's funny, you listen, Chris, to Lost Boys of Hannibal all over YouTube.
There's these 10 minute videos and they always give us a shout out,
which I think is awesome.
Because my friend's like, man, And they're using your stuff.
I'm like, no, they're helping us.
They're drawing attention to this. It's not about me and Chris. It's about the boys.
And so I love when people do it. I mean, there's a really funny one about,
(40:21):
you know, the ghost Amanda led the boys into a cave so she could have ghost friends.
But, you know, aside from that, and then there's the big foot stuff,
the cryptids. I'm sorry, cryptid people.
I know I made a post not too long ago and everybody got mad at me,
so I deleted it. But I just thought it was funny.
But I think that, like, you know, making a podcast about Momo and the Lost Boys
is just not in our agenda.
(40:43):
It never has been. him so we did do
an episode about that though it was one of those one of
those far left like weird stuff we've heard kind
of episodes so that was that we covered that a little bit so
hey frankie before we get wrapped up there's one other thing i did want to point
out real quick and that's one of the going back to another one of the stories
that was was kind of surfaced around in windgate's book and talked about in
(41:05):
different circles and that has to do with during the same time when the boys
went missing that was also obviously when the construction of highway 79 was happening.
But it was also when the viaduct that goes across the railroad tracks in downtown
Hannibal was being built.
And one of the stories was, well, maybe the boys went across this viaduct,
they just put in some risers or some pillars in there, and maybe the boys fell into the pillars.
(41:31):
Well, we have, of course, people that work for MoDOT. I asked that question, like, is this possible?
And they're like, there's no way this is possible, because there's way too too
much rebar into that in those pillars for anything to fall in there,
literally alone of a 5'10 boy and three on top of that.
Now we do have the proof that there is absolutely nothing because after 50 plus
(41:52):
years, they have tore down that viaduct and are replacing it with a brand new one.
All the pillars, everything's been tore down and ripped up.
There has been no evidence of any sort of human remains in any of it.
So we can officially mark that rabbit hole off.
We need some sort of a cheer or something right here, Frankie,
(42:13):
because that is something that we can officially take off the list because there
was nothing found when they tore down the fire department.
Yeah. And that's great.
I'm glad that we kind of, you know, dot at the I and across the T on that one.
The other one too, that we still get message about, and I think it's because
people are listening to season two and three, is the actual construction company
(42:34):
that's building the road.
Oh, yes. And some of the salacious stuff that happened with that company,
we still really have not gotten any leads on any of that stuff of what happened.
And there, there is a scenario where people believe that it's possible that
instead of the kids getting, you know, locked into a cave and the shell fell
down, that they hit it and they did know about it. Well, here's the thing.
(42:59):
There's too many people. There's too many people working at the construction
grounds that if something like that would have happened there,
there would have been a whistleblower in my opinion.
The other, the other thing too, is that, you know, they moved the body and they
left him somewhere in a rubble pile, which is not far. It's actually in Hannibal.
We actually know the location of where all the excess road that they dug out.
(43:19):
We know where that place is.
And then if by some reason they're there, you know, so yes, we do.
Do we do still think about that stuff it's not
on top of agenda especially after all the
work that's been done here in the last year since we've been podcasting i think
it's almost been a little over a year since you guys heard from us so it is
something that i want you guys to think yes we do think about that stuff it's
(43:43):
not that it's off our radar there's just a list of priorities that chris has
always kept that this is where our focus needs to be.
And that's kind of where we are
today. Chris, I don't know if you have any messages or anything out there.
Yeah, we're still on. Well, it's a good point. We're still on phase one.
There's always was three phases involved with this and that what you're talking about.
I still hold on to the thought about Tobin having something to do with it.
(44:08):
And I think there's a percentage that can be still held on to that theory.
But honestly, right now, the lead we have is so huge. I mean,
this is kind of comparable to us finding a sinkhole in somebody's yard a couple of years ago.
You know, that was that was number one, like that was our number one lead.
And then we found out, well, it's the Lost Boys Cave. It's not necessarily a
new passage. And so that kind of checkmarked that off.
(44:30):
But in doing so led to some new paths or new new ways of going.
But it always been three phases a set. The second phase has been going out to
where the Rebel pile is and seeing what we can do out there with either some
sort of ground penetrating radar resistivity or something along those lines.
And then finally, the third phase, which is still in thoughts.
Hopefully we don't have to get there. Hopefully you find them before then.
(44:53):
But is to take a closer look at Lover's Leap because there is a whole nother
section of limestone up above higher than what we're talking about that does
have some possible cave passages in it.
And they were explored to somewhat of an
extent in 67 but not to the extent what it can
be today with technology so that is going
to be still phase three of taking a look at that if we need to get to that point
(45:15):
but let's hope our percentages are high enough on the other ones that maybe
we can just knock it out with this next thing that we're looking at doing but
frankie think about this for just a second before we wrap up we have literally
dug a football field size field oh.
I have literally been underneath the ground walking in cave passages.
And this all came from doing a podcast.
(45:36):
It's crazy. And the meetings you've been on with all these city executives and
these people in the state, they're, you know, making our roads better.
And that's the thing, too, about MoDOT is, like, these guys work.
They care. They really care about what they do, guys. I mean,
these guys are thinking about road construction all the time and safety,
(46:00):
especially, you know, Chris, as you guys know, he not only teaches,
but he also still drives trucks.
So he, he, he's on these roads. He, he sees it firsthand.
Like when he's going down a road that looks like Baghdad, I mean,
he knows he's thankful for roads like 79 and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, that's where I would be. Also just this one thing too,
what Chris was saying, where this cavern is, where he was at,
(46:21):
there were marks in, in Lost Boys Cave.
There's marks on the wall from the cavers. So they were down there.
This new area, we probably know for a fact that nobody's been down there.
Except maybe the boys. Except maybe the boys. So we'll leave it there today.
It's been awesome. It's been fun to actually do a podcast with Chris again.
(46:42):
It's been a while. Yeah, it has been. So from all of us here at Lost Boys of
Hannibal, we hope to be talking to you real soon.
I'm Frankie. I'm Chris. We'll be seeing you.
Music.
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