December 2, 2024 • 37 mins
Episode 36
The Donner Party
LISTENER WARNING
Today's episode contains descriptions of graphic situations including starvation, violence, and cannibalism.
Listener discretion is advised.
Today we're going to be talking about one of the most tragic and creepy historical moments in our nation's soil. The tale of families trying to pioneer their way over to the West Coast for a new beginning. Between bad luck and bad choicesthe the Donner Party never stood a chance of making it to California in one piece.
April 15th, 1846 89 people and 20 wagons started their Journey, and went into the severe Nevada mountains. Only 45 came out by the time of the last rescue in the late winter of 1847. The Donner Party tragedy solidified their story into the creepy history books forever.
For more creepy content visit...
WWW.CREEPYCONFIDENTIAL.COM
Darkcast Network end of episode promos:
Missing In The PNW
&
Weird True Crime
The Donner Party
LISTENER WARNING
Today's episode contains descriptions of graphic situations including starvation, violence, and cannibalism.
Listener discretion is advised.
Today we're going to be talking about one of the most tragic and creepy historical moments in our nation's soil. The tale of families trying to pioneer their way over to the West Coast for a new beginning. Between bad luck and bad choicesthe the Donner Party never stood a chance of making it to California in one piece.
April 15th, 1846 89 people and 20 wagons started their Journey, and went into the severe Nevada mountains. Only 45 came out by the time of the last rescue in the late winter of 1847. The Donner Party tragedy solidified their story into the creepy history books forever.
For more creepy content visit...
WWW.CREEPYCONFIDENTIAL.COM
Darkcast Network end of episode promos:
Missing In The PNW
&
Weird True Crime
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Dark Cast Network indie podcasts with a Dark Side. Today's
episode contains descriptions of graphic situations including starvation, violence, and cannibalism.
Listener discretion is advised. A more shocking scene cannot be
(00:27):
imagined than that witnessed by the party of men who
went to the relief of the unfortunate immigrants in the
California Mountains. The bones of those who had died and
been devoured by the miserable ones that still survived were
lying around their tents and cabins. Bodies of men, women,
(00:48):
and children, with half the flesh torn from them, lay
on every side. A woman sat by the body of
her husband, who had just died, eating out his tongue,
the heart she had already taken out, broiled and eaten.
The daughter was seen eating the flesh of the father,
(01:09):
the mother that of her children, children that of father
and mother. The emaciated, wild, and ghastly appearance of the
survivors added to the horror of the scene. Language cannot
describe the awful change that a few weeks of dire
suffering had wrought in the minds of these wretched and
(01:30):
pitable beings, Those who but one month before would have
shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh,
or of killing their companions and relatives to preserve their
own lives. Now looked upon the opportunity by these acts
afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of deaths as
(01:51):
a providential interference in their behalf. Calculations were coldly made
as they sat gloomily as their gloomy campfires. For the
next and succeeding meals. Various exponents were devised to prevent
the dreadful crime of murder, but they finally resolved to
(02:13):
kill those who had the least claims to no longer exist.
Just at this moment, however, as if by divine interpolation,
some of them died, which afforded the rest temporary relief.
Some sunk into the arms of death, cursing God for
their miserable fate, while the last whisperings of others were
(02:34):
prayers and songs of praise to the Almighty. Published Saturday,
April tenth, eighteen forty seven, The California Star of San Francisco, California.
Sub Creeps and Welcome to Creepy Confidential. Is Mothman really
(02:55):
a supernatural force predicting impending doom. Did Apollo a La
really land on the moon in nineteen sixty nine? Did
you find out if that was a cult that was
living just two doors down that you wave to every
single day when you got your mail. If these are
the things you ponder when you should be sleeping, then
(03:16):
I would like to welcome you to Creepy Confidential. I'm
your host, Noel, you're resident Weirdo Wisconsin. I open case
files on my favorite cryptids, cults, conspiracies, and other worldly
creepy with new cases, live broadcasts, and local lore. Some
stories have been lost with time, others are perhaps still
(03:38):
happening today in your local communities, right up under your
very creepy noses. So get ready, creeps, it's Creepy Confidential Subcreeps.
(04:06):
Today's episode is going to cover some graphic, creepy tragic history.
Today we're going to be talking about one of the
most tragic and creepy historical moments in our nation, Soil,
the tale of families trying to pioneer their way over
to the West Coast for a new beginning. Between bad
luck and bad choices, the Donner Party never stood a chance.
(04:33):
April fifteenth, eighteen forty six, eighty nine people and twenty
wagons started their journey and went into the severe Nevada Mountains.
Only forty five came out by the time of the
last rescue in the late winter almost early spring of
eighteen forty seven. The Donner Party tragedy solidified their story
(04:57):
into the creepy history books.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
For a fe.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Large amounts of families were migrating their way to the
West via the Oregon Trail. Attacks by natives, hunger, and
loneliness were only a few hazards that parties suffered with
their long journey across the United States. Families were willing
to endure and didn't even one hundred percent know what
(05:23):
they would find at the end of their journey. George
Donner and his brother Jacob had made their life in Springfield, Illinois,
and were in their sixties when they decided to make
the journey west. George Donner met James Red, but no
one is quite sure how that meeting came to be,
how those two men came to be in each other's company.
(05:47):
Reed was a prosperous businessman who had invested big in
the railroad, but when that went bust, he ended up
having to rob Peter to pay Paul sort of when
it came to paying his bills and was ready for
a fresh start. He filed bankruptcy and his local lawyer
was helping him get ready to liquify whatever assets he
might have had left. He liked this lawyer well enough
(06:11):
that he asked him to join their party and their journey.
A tall, gangly fellow who was two years away from
being a congressman and fifteen years away from being the
President of the United States of America. Let's see if
you put that all together, tall gangly fellow from Illinois,
living in Illinois, who was a congressman and then a
(06:34):
president none other than Abraham Lincoln. That's right, folks, the
sixteenth President of the United States of America could have
been part of the Donner Party and potentially either a
victim of cannibalism or took part of cannibalism. Sadly, his
(06:55):
fate could not be outrun though, as we all know
what happened to him that night in the theater. Rip, sir,
back to the Donners. So the Donner Read Party was
trying to get going. The leaders of this party had
land fever and they really wanted to make a new
and warmer start in California. They had come across this book,
(07:20):
The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California by Lanceford Hastings.
The book claimed to contain a description of the different
routes to those countries, or so they were called back then,
and all necessary information relative to the equipment, supplies and
the method of traveling, per the title of the book.
(07:41):
I know that's a lot, but that was indeed the
whole title for the listeners. If you decide you want
to take a look at this book, you can go
to archive dot org and they actually have a scanned
in copy of this book. I believe it's at one
hundred and fifty eight pages, so there is quite a
bit to it. But I also found references where they
called it a pamphlet, so that's a big pamphlet. But
(08:03):
if you want to see it, archive dot org has
it for free, a version of it that you can
see for free. What's wild to me is that much
of this information in this book seems like it could
be useful. But the part that makes us hate a
Hastings in the end will come later. The party needed
(08:25):
to leave Illinois by the second week of March and
reach Independence, Missouri by April first, But they didn't leave
Illinois until April fourteenth, which from the very beginning made
them more than a month behind, which may not seem
like a big deal nowadays, but trying to literally go
(08:47):
over the mountain in snow or not in snow makes
a huge difference, especially when you only have ox a
wagon and your whole household in those wagons. So what
held them back so late? Remember read he's still trying
(09:07):
to get his affairs in order and has to wait
to sign the paperwork until April thirteenth. The rest of
the day he was trying to smuggle goods to kind
of get ready for his trip. So they didn't leave
until the fourteenth. One person made them start that late.
(09:28):
When they made it to Independence, the other groups that
were headed west had already left, having spent a week
recharging their energy and more importantly, recharging the energy of
their oxen. The party quickly realized why it was important
to get there earlier. Now before I go on, One
(09:50):
quick thought was that if they knew at this time
that they clearly this was too late and only what
two weeks of a journey, so go back, go back
to Illinois. But you know they didn't. That's what history
tells us. The first step back was when they got
(10:14):
to the Big Blue River. After they had left Independence
the river with another large team that they had met
up with. They noticed that the river had swelled. Then
they stopped at the banks to try and figure out
what they might do, and the river had just almost
doubled in size because of the late spring rains and
(10:34):
snow melt off had just made it really, really rise.
The best time to cross would have been a month earlier.
While they were waiting four days for the water level
to try and go down a little bit, they lost
the first member of their party. Don't worry, not to cannibalism,
at least not yet. Missus Reed's elderly mother passed away.
(10:58):
She was buried, made a coffin for her. They buried
her right there on the trail. The river never dropped
at all in its level, and they knew they had
to make a choice. The men of the party chopped
down trees and they helped create these rafts to help
them sail these wagons across the river. That night, the
(11:23):
temperature dropped and it began to rain but on June
first they were able to resume their journey. Now, with
five more days lost, they knew they could still make
it as long as nothing else went wrong. Famous last words. Right.
June twenty seventh, eighteen forty six, the Donner Reid party
(11:45):
and the large party that they were traveling with arrives
at Fort Laramie. Now James Reid meets up with this
kind of mountaineer man named James Climan, who had just
come by horse with Ansford Hastings by way of this
new route known as the Hastings Cutoff. So, if you
(12:07):
are keeping track, the book Hastings wrote included this route,
So how can he write the route and tell the
people to take it as a way to cut off
time and distance if he only now has taken this route.
If your spindy senses are tingling, you are correct. So
climbing Climban urges the Donner read party to avoid this
(12:30):
cutoff and to stay on the normal trail that would
connect to the Oregon Trail, which is vastly more known
and trusted, because at this point lots of people had
been traveling via that route. Further on the journey, at
Independence Rock, a writer bearing an open letter from Hastings
urging quote all immigrants now on the road, quote to
(12:54):
meet them at Fort Bridger so that he can guide
them on his cutoff. They continued and on July nineteenth
reached the fork in the road, one way to the
Oregon Trail and the other to the Hastings cutoff. They
turned left to the shortcut. This cutoff would end up
(13:15):
adding one hundred and twenty five miles to their journey
and weeks of time on the trail. At this turn,
the leader would shift and it would become the Donner Party.
In the later afternoons and evenings, they noticed the weather
shifting and chilling temperatures and winds were Starting July twenty seventh,
(13:36):
they arrived at Fort Bridger and they raced ahead to
meet the then famous Lanceford Hastings, but Hastings wasn't there.
He had left with previous impatient settlers wanting to move on.
They stayed three days there at the fort eleven days
(13:58):
before the Donner Party of Rod it had rained. When
the clouds from the rain storm broke, it revealed snow
on the mountains, and then temperatures had dropped from the
eighties to the forties, winter was knocking at the door
and hard. Others in the train were very worried about
(14:22):
the shift in the weather. Another guide discouraged them from
taking the cutoff. The smaller group had ridden ahead and
wrote the wagon party detailed instructions again to go around
and not take the cutoff, but the notes of caution
never reached the party. James Reid wrote to a friend
(14:46):
that he expected the road to be level and was
excited that the cutoff took hundreds of miles off the trail.
As they continued on and soon were met with more
bad circumstances. An ox had been lost and the road
was not smooth as promised. They had to ride over
(15:06):
hills and valleys, and Hastings had secured a note to
a sage bush. Of all things, He wrote, they should
send a party ahead to help guide them. There were
trees and brush all throughout, so not very passable for
wagons and people to just easily move through them. They
(15:28):
reached Hastings and they demanded that he ride back with
them and guide them. Part way into the journey, he
quits the mission Douchebag Award of the Year. He explained
he needed to return to his other caravan and that
the best he could do was lead James Reed to
a peak called Big Mountain, east of Salley. At the
(15:51):
Big Mountain, he only gave vague instructions and then straight
up bailed. They would never see him again. Reid returned
to the party and gave them another trail. Another family,
the Graves family, joined up with the Donner family to
join them in the last portion of the journey. For
(16:12):
those who know how the story ends, that was a
major bad decision on the Graves's part. Now the entirety
of the parties headed to the Salt Lake Desert. End
of August, Luke Halaran dies of tuberculosis. He was buried
at the fork in the road. Another note was found
(16:32):
from Hastings warning them of another two day drive ahead.
So they collect grass from their animals and water for them,
and three days into this two day journey they run
out of water. They experienced mirages and a set of
oxen stampede and run off in search of water, never
(16:56):
to be seen again. Five days into their two day journey,
thanks again Hastings, they finished the harrowing crossing of the desert.
They had lost thirty six head of cattle and four
wagons had to be abandoned. They found a water source,
but they discovered they didn't have enough food to make
(17:18):
it to California. They set back out on September tenth,
and six days later they experienced a snowstorm. This was
Mother Nature's first take to let them know of their
snowy future. Early October, while struggling up a sandy hill
at Iron Point, Nevada, the teams became entangled. A fight
(17:41):
breaks out and Red is hit on the head by
a man named John Snyder. The fight continues, Reed's wife
gets hit on the head. I'm not sure if it's
by accident or on purpose by Snyder, and Reed stabs
Snyder and kills him for this. He is exiled. Now
(18:03):
I understand that they are trying to kind of have
justice and maintain morale and rules, but clearly this trip
is already not going correctly, and now you're going to
exile somebody, but in the future turn out that might
actually have helped them. So he's exiled with nothing but
clothes and a horse. Luckily, his daughter sneaks out and
(18:28):
brings him his arm, you know, his gun, his knife.
Some provisions that they some some that they still had,
so at least he had a chance back on the
road right. The next day, another incident, an elderly man
and the party is turned out of his wagon trying
(18:49):
to lighten the load, as everyone who can walk is walking.
They've pretty much walked this whole time just to try
and save the strength. More weight is going to slow
them down and cause more wear and tear on their oxen.
So they turn out this old man and nobody else
wants to take him in, and he is last seen
(19:11):
sitting by the side of a road because he cannot
go any further. October eleventh, eighteen forty six, at night,
pioed Indians kill twenty one of the Donner's oxen. Another
eighteen of the oxen are taken, and several others are wounded.
I don't know if few creeps are catching a trend here,
(19:32):
but this poor party of pioneers just could not catch
a break and you know, or just make a good
decision really, so moving on. It was the last week
of October and winter was already starting to set in. Now,
if you're keeping tabs again or know the story, this
is when things really start to descend into the pit
(19:54):
of despair. The cold, the snow, and depleted food sources
have caught up with the traveling party, and things are
about to go from bad to worst, circumstances imaginable. On
Halloween night, they reached Trucky Lake. They went around the
north side and discovered a small cabin. We'll call it.
(20:18):
It's kind of more just a kind of a storage area.
They fed their hungry cattle cut pieces of pine branches,
you know, because that's the snow was covering everything else
so they couldn't eat off of the ground. That night,
they camp and slept under a clear sky and a
full moon. They noticed a halo which told these Midwest
(20:39):
farmers a storm was approaching, and the next morning the
snow began to fall. The snow began to fall so
hard it buried the wagons almost up to the axles,
and they had to make a decision to abandon the
wagons all together. They turned back to lower elevation to
a band to that at the low bandoned cabin that
(21:01):
they had crossed earlier. They just could not go any further.
They had traveled two thousand, five hundred miles and were
only one hundred miles from the next big fort, but
it might as well have been another thousand miles. The
most demoralizing part was that they had missed their window
(21:22):
by one day because the snowstorm one day, and they
would have been ahead of this big snowstorm. All the
late starts, random delays, fights, and choosing the hastings cut
off they would have made it, so now they're stuck.
The snow had hit the next day. They tried once
(21:44):
more to advance, but after a mile or so they
had to turn back. The snow was so heavy that
night they have to kill the last of their cattle
for hides to cover the tops of the shack and
the meat to eat. It snowed heavy for eight straight days,
keeping them from building additional cabins that would have been
(22:08):
needed to be kind of sustainable. Somehow, over the winter,
they knew they would be there until the snow broke.
As the winter moved forward, they bartered the last of
their sickly animals amongst each other, with only a small
celebration when they managed to kill a bear, only after
the bear almost killed them. Then the exiled read and
(22:30):
two others had made it to the other side. In
the history books, we learn that the exiled. Read and
two others traveling companions will call it. They weren't from
the party obviously, had made it to the other side
of the mountains. They assembled food and fresh animals and
(22:50):
started back on a rescue mission. Read and his traveling
companions had come across a couple the courteses that had
left the larger party earlier on based on a disagreement,
and they joined the couple for a meal. When they
were scooped a portion out of a Dutch oven for
a meal, they had no idea that it was the
(23:14):
couple's pet dog that they were eating. They promised that
they would come back for them once they had found
and rescued the Donner party. They continued and the snow
hammered down. At one point the only thing visible was
the neck of the horses. The snow was too soft
(23:34):
and deep they had to turn back. They dug the
horses out and returned to the couple at the campsite,
and then returned to the fort. Meanwhile, back at the campsite,
the Donner party were now resorting to bark eating bark,
and the occasional lucky hit like a mangy timber wolf.
(23:55):
If they managed to get lucky. The small amounts of
meat and fat were given first to the children and
the elderly. One of the party, Stanton, last named Stanton,
decided that they could make snow shoes to try and
get across the snow. December fifteenth, the first recorded death
in the camps occur. A young man dies of malnutrition.
(24:21):
Later that day, Jacob Donner passes along with two other men.
On December sixteenth, after there was a break in the snow,
a group of seventeen men, women and children leave the
main camp with eight pounds of dried beef, little sugar,
and coffee, possibly enough to stay alive for six days.
(24:45):
One man, Stanton, got horrible snow blindness, swollen eyes, blind
and unable to move forward on his own. He was
seen smoking his pipe and was asked by one of
the the younger folk in the crew there if he
was okay, and he told them he would be along shortly.
(25:07):
The small party departed and Stanton was never seen again. Meanwhile,
back at the main camp, three year old Eliza said
that they captured and ate little field mice that had
crept into the camp. The scrap pieces of beef hide
were scraped and boiled until it was the consistency of glue,
(25:30):
and then swallowed the best that they could. Bones that
had no more marrow were burned and eaten. Pine scraps
were consumed to try and curb their hunger and get
some nutrition. The snowshoe crew continued wandering through the snow
like zombies. Patrick Dolland was the first to think the
(25:51):
unthinkable and said they should draw sticks or lots to
see who would sacrifice themselves first. They drew lots to duel.
Dollard drew the shortest ouch, but they ended up not
following through with it, but their status as a group
(26:12):
rapidly deteriorated. Another man in the party, Franklin Grave, died
shortly after a large gust blew out their fire, so
he probably just that little bit of warmth was what
was helping him hang on, but before he expired he
begged that they should eat him to survive. Dolan woke
(26:35):
up the camp Christmas morning shrieking and screaming, suffering from hypothermia.
He was delirious. They managed to calm him down and
he fell into a deep sleep and never woke up.
They were finally able to get a rolling fire from
a large pine. The rule was that no one would
(26:57):
have to consume a relative, even in times of desperation.
A moral compass was present. They were just trying to
survive and not be savages. A young man just thirteen
years old had become delirious, just was so hungry, and
he ate a whole mouse alive, with his delirium increasing.
(27:23):
After having to know what he did, he laid on
his sister's lap and just passed away. December thirtieth, they
left the now labeled camp, which is now known as
the Camp of Death, and their journey continued on with
blood tracing in the snow. Their feet had been bloodied
(27:47):
just because of all of this horrible. You know, it's wet,
it's cold, they're not able to go, and now it's
passing through their moccasins. New Year's Eve, they ate the
last of the human meat. Patrick Breen's diary read last
of the Year. May we, with God's help, spend the
(28:11):
coming year better than the past, which we purpose to do.
If Almighty God will deliver us from our present dreadful situation,
which is our prayer, If the will of God sees
it fitting for us, Amen, The snowshoers continue and come
across a blooded trail. They find the two natives that
(28:33):
had been traveling with the larger group, but they had
left due to a growing concern that they themselves would
find themselves as part of a hate crime and possibly
a meal. Now they were laying prone on the ground
at the base of a tree. Out of energy and
unable to continue walking, The women moved out of the way,
(28:57):
and then two men shot them in the head with
the right The nutrition gained from their corpses was enough
energy to allow them to find an Indian trail two
days later. Ironically enough, the same tribe that the two
men that had been consumed were part of. The natives,
not knowing this information, nursed the party back to health,
(29:20):
and some of them were taken to a couple's house nearby.
Seventeen snowshoers had left the original camp to try and
find help. Now only two men and five women remained
of that group. Back at the main area the Trucky
Lake camp, the conditions were deplorable. January thirty first, eighteen
(29:42):
forty seven, the first relief party was able to leave
Sutter's Fort. February nineteenth, the rescue party makes it to
the camp. It's quiet, so quiet they are unsure if
anybody is even there. Then a skeletal woman emerged from
(30:03):
the hole in the snow. She asked, are you men
from California? Or are you from heaven? She believed these
men were possibly a mirage. Nine members of the lake
camp were dead, and a baby had succumbed to death
the night the rescuers arrived. How a baby could have
(30:23):
made it this long, and I'm sure there were other
babies just due to the cold and the nutrition is
a miracle in my opinion. The rescuers doled out food
very carefully, knowing that with starvation, if they ate too fast,
they potentially could kill. Not all of the party could
be rescued in one go, they knew they were going
(30:45):
to have to do this in a few groupings. They
took a section of the stranded and knew they would
have to return for them in a week. In between
rescue missions, the camp went from bad to worst case scenario.
When they returned, dismembered corpses and body parts were strewn everywhere.
(31:07):
The children of Donner sat on a nearby log eating
the heart of their father. Blood staining their cheeks and chin.
They completely ignored the rescuers. Around the campfire were fragments
of bone and skin. Mister Reed was with his rescue
party and discovered his faithful wagon driver. His head and
(31:33):
face had not been touched, but the rest of him had.
The rescue mission was not the last. The third and
fourth mission returned. They found kettle inside was human skin.
The rescuers found the last survivor, Louis Keysburg. In his room,
(31:54):
they found a pan of water that contained a fresh
liver and lungs. He had eaten Tamsen Donner, George Donner's wife,
even though he swore he did not take her life.
He was the last to be rescued. Eighty one people
made it to those mountains. Forty five of them survived.
(32:17):
Most were physically scarred from frostbite and malnutrition. Afterwards, all
were emotionally scarred and what they had to do to
survive for about eight months. The stories of this horrible
tale shocked people in all of the kind of media
outlets into not attempting the journey. But after all this horror,
(32:42):
Sutter and his business partner had started a business and
accidentally started the gold rush after discovering the flakes while
they were building the business that they had recently began,
with the people shifting from land fever to gold fever
after that. So what about Hastings? That was what I
wanted to know at the end of this tale. Did
(33:04):
Karma catch up to him ultimately? Yes, but not in
the way I maybe had hoped during this story kind
of unraveling all of the pieces I really wanted to
hear justice was served by the people of the Daughner Party,
but that was not what happened. After California was conquered
(33:28):
by the United States, his chances of that empire of
being the top dog and ruling that area had crumbled.
He served as the territorial judge to Yuma, Arizona, after
his family moved there in the eighteen fifties. During the
Civil War, he sided with the South, and he was
promoted to rank of major in the Confederate States Army.
(33:51):
He died in Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands in
eighteen seventy, possibly due to yellow fever. So, if we're lucky,
it wasn't fun for him. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode slightly different than usual. But history lessons can have
a creepy side too, So thanks for coming to class.
(34:13):
Before I wrap up today, I want to thank the
creep Nation for making twenty twenty four a great year,
more episodes, more listeners, and our first convention. This was
our last episode for the year and we look forward
to seeing you all next year. We will be starting
the year off with some fun episodes and the live
(34:34):
streams will be back. Join us January seventeenth, twenty twenty
five for if you're listening to this in the Way
Way Future. Over on our YouTube channel, we will be
welcoming Leslie and Stephen Shaw to come and talk about
their book and the cool things that they know about.
All of our links are in the episode details for
(34:56):
that episode, as well as all of our other ones
in the past. Until next year, we'll catch you right
here on Creepy Confidential.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Hey, I'm Gina and I'm Amber, and we are here
to bring you the weird true crime podcast where we
cover true crime cases that will leave you asking yourself,
did that really happen. We'll dive into well known and
not so known cases throughout history. Some are unsolved and
some are just unbelievable. We'll also talk about current news
(35:38):
topics that range from kooky to questionable on episodes that
we like to call weird Headline. Be sure to subscribe
and listen on your favorite podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Service on Wiki travel. The Pacific Northwest is best known
for its beautiful coastline, green interior, rainy weather, and spectacular mountains.
But because of all this, it's also the perfect place
(36:08):
to go missing.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
My name's Carmita, and I grew up in the Pacific
Northwest and Portland, Oregon. I host a podcast called Missing
in the PNW. My podcast is different from others you
may have heard because I focus specifically on two things.
The first is that all of the missing person cases
that I cover are strictly from the Pacific Northwest and
Oregon and Washington. I know the title of my podcast
(36:33):
should have given that one away. The second thing is
that my podcast focuses strictly on missing persons from marginalized
communities such as the black, Hispanic, Native American Indigenous people
and the LGBTQ plus communities, you know, the ones that
get absolutely no media attention. Now, I am not an
(36:53):
investigative journalist or a reporter. I'm actually a widowed mom
of three who loves crime and has a passion for
social justice. So join me in helping to spread the
word on these missing person cases and help you the
voice for the ones that are now voiceless. You can
find Missing in the PNW on all of the major
streaming apps, as well as on socials at Missing in
(37:17):
the PNW podcast. If you have a case you want
me to cover, please email me at Missing in THEPNW
at gmail dot com or send me a message through
Facebook Messenger. I hope to talk to you soon, and remember,
have fun, but be safe.
Dark Cast Network indie podcasts with a Dark Side. Today's
episode contains descriptions of graphic situations including starvation, violence, and cannibalism.
Listener discretion is advised. A more shocking scene cannot be
(00:27):
imagined than that witnessed by the party of men who
went to the relief of the unfortunate immigrants in the
California Mountains. The bones of those who had died and
been devoured by the miserable ones that still survived were
lying around their tents and cabins. Bodies of men, women,
(00:48):
and children, with half the flesh torn from them, lay
on every side. A woman sat by the body of
her husband, who had just died, eating out his tongue,
the heart she had already taken out, broiled and eaten.
The daughter was seen eating the flesh of the father,
(01:09):
the mother that of her children, children that of father
and mother. The emaciated, wild, and ghastly appearance of the
survivors added to the horror of the scene. Language cannot
describe the awful change that a few weeks of dire
suffering had wrought in the minds of these wretched and
(01:30):
pitable beings, Those who but one month before would have
shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh,
or of killing their companions and relatives to preserve their
own lives. Now looked upon the opportunity by these acts
afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of deaths as
(01:51):
a providential interference in their behalf. Calculations were coldly made
as they sat gloomily as their gloomy campfires. For the
next and succeeding meals. Various exponents were devised to prevent
the dreadful crime of murder, but they finally resolved to
(02:13):
kill those who had the least claims to no longer exist.
Just at this moment, however, as if by divine interpolation,
some of them died, which afforded the rest temporary relief.
Some sunk into the arms of death, cursing God for
their miserable fate, while the last whisperings of others were
(02:34):
prayers and songs of praise to the Almighty. Published Saturday,
April tenth, eighteen forty seven, The California Star of San Francisco, California.
Sub Creeps and Welcome to Creepy Confidential. Is Mothman really
(02:55):
a supernatural force predicting impending doom. Did Apollo a La
really land on the moon in nineteen sixty nine? Did
you find out if that was a cult that was
living just two doors down that you wave to every
single day when you got your mail. If these are
the things you ponder when you should be sleeping, then
(03:16):
I would like to welcome you to Creepy Confidential. I'm
your host, Noel, you're resident Weirdo Wisconsin. I open case
files on my favorite cryptids, cults, conspiracies, and other worldly
creepy with new cases, live broadcasts, and local lore. Some
stories have been lost with time, others are perhaps still
(03:38):
happening today in your local communities, right up under your
very creepy noses. So get ready, creeps, it's Creepy Confidential Subcreeps.
(04:06):
Today's episode is going to cover some graphic, creepy tragic history.
Today we're going to be talking about one of the
most tragic and creepy historical moments in our nation, Soil,
the tale of families trying to pioneer their way over
to the West Coast for a new beginning. Between bad
luck and bad choices, the Donner Party never stood a chance.
(04:33):
April fifteenth, eighteen forty six, eighty nine people and twenty
wagons started their journey and went into the severe Nevada Mountains.
Only forty five came out by the time of the
last rescue in the late winter almost early spring of
eighteen forty seven. The Donner Party tragedy solidified their story
(04:57):
into the creepy history books.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
For a fe.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Large amounts of families were migrating their way to the
West via the Oregon Trail. Attacks by natives, hunger, and
loneliness were only a few hazards that parties suffered with
their long journey across the United States. Families were willing
to endure and didn't even one hundred percent know what
(05:23):
they would find at the end of their journey. George
Donner and his brother Jacob had made their life in Springfield, Illinois,
and were in their sixties when they decided to make
the journey west. George Donner met James Red, but no
one is quite sure how that meeting came to be,
how those two men came to be in each other's company.
(05:47):
Reed was a prosperous businessman who had invested big in
the railroad, but when that went bust, he ended up
having to rob Peter to pay Paul sort of when
it came to paying his bills and was ready for
a fresh start. He filed bankruptcy and his local lawyer
was helping him get ready to liquify whatever assets he
might have had left. He liked this lawyer well enough
(06:11):
that he asked him to join their party and their journey.
A tall, gangly fellow who was two years away from
being a congressman and fifteen years away from being the
President of the United States of America. Let's see if
you put that all together, tall gangly fellow from Illinois,
living in Illinois, who was a congressman and then a
(06:34):
president none other than Abraham Lincoln. That's right, folks, the
sixteenth President of the United States of America could have
been part of the Donner Party and potentially either a
victim of cannibalism or took part of cannibalism. Sadly, his
(06:55):
fate could not be outrun though, as we all know
what happened to him that night in the theater. Rip, sir,
back to the Donners. So the Donner Read Party was
trying to get going. The leaders of this party had
land fever and they really wanted to make a new
and warmer start in California. They had come across this book,
(07:20):
The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California by Lanceford Hastings.
The book claimed to contain a description of the different
routes to those countries, or so they were called back then,
and all necessary information relative to the equipment, supplies and
the method of traveling, per the title of the book.
(07:41):
I know that's a lot, but that was indeed the
whole title for the listeners. If you decide you want
to take a look at this book, you can go
to archive dot org and they actually have a scanned
in copy of this book. I believe it's at one
hundred and fifty eight pages, so there is quite a
bit to it. But I also found references where they
called it a pamphlet, so that's a big pamphlet. But
(08:03):
if you want to see it, archive dot org has
it for free, a version of it that you can
see for free. What's wild to me is that much
of this information in this book seems like it could
be useful. But the part that makes us hate a
Hastings in the end will come later. The party needed
(08:25):
to leave Illinois by the second week of March and
reach Independence, Missouri by April first, But they didn't leave
Illinois until April fourteenth, which from the very beginning made
them more than a month behind, which may not seem
like a big deal nowadays, but trying to literally go
(08:47):
over the mountain in snow or not in snow makes
a huge difference, especially when you only have ox a
wagon and your whole household in those wagons. So what
held them back so late? Remember read he's still trying
(09:07):
to get his affairs in order and has to wait
to sign the paperwork until April thirteenth. The rest of
the day he was trying to smuggle goods to kind
of get ready for his trip. So they didn't leave
until the fourteenth. One person made them start that late.
(09:28):
When they made it to Independence, the other groups that
were headed west had already left, having spent a week
recharging their energy and more importantly, recharging the energy of
their oxen. The party quickly realized why it was important
to get there earlier. Now before I go on, One
(09:50):
quick thought was that if they knew at this time
that they clearly this was too late and only what
two weeks of a journey, so go back, go back
to Illinois. But you know they didn't. That's what history
tells us. The first step back was when they got
(10:14):
to the Big Blue River. After they had left Independence
the river with another large team that they had met
up with. They noticed that the river had swelled. Then
they stopped at the banks to try and figure out
what they might do, and the river had just almost
doubled in size because of the late spring rains and
(10:34):
snow melt off had just made it really, really rise.
The best time to cross would have been a month earlier.
While they were waiting four days for the water level
to try and go down a little bit, they lost
the first member of their party. Don't worry, not to cannibalism,
at least not yet. Missus Reed's elderly mother passed away.
(10:58):
She was buried, made a coffin for her. They buried
her right there on the trail. The river never dropped
at all in its level, and they knew they had
to make a choice. The men of the party chopped
down trees and they helped create these rafts to help
them sail these wagons across the river. That night, the
(11:23):
temperature dropped and it began to rain but on June
first they were able to resume their journey. Now, with
five more days lost, they knew they could still make
it as long as nothing else went wrong. Famous last words. Right.
June twenty seventh, eighteen forty six, the Donner Reid party
(11:45):
and the large party that they were traveling with arrives
at Fort Laramie. Now James Reid meets up with this
kind of mountaineer man named James Climan, who had just
come by horse with Ansford Hastings by way of this
new route known as the Hastings Cutoff. So, if you
(12:07):
are keeping track, the book Hastings wrote included this route,
So how can he write the route and tell the
people to take it as a way to cut off
time and distance if he only now has taken this route.
If your spindy senses are tingling, you are correct. So
climbing Climban urges the Donner read party to avoid this
(12:30):
cutoff and to stay on the normal trail that would
connect to the Oregon Trail, which is vastly more known
and trusted, because at this point lots of people had
been traveling via that route. Further on the journey, at
Independence Rock, a writer bearing an open letter from Hastings
urging quote all immigrants now on the road, quote to
(12:54):
meet them at Fort Bridger so that he can guide
them on his cutoff. They continued and on July nineteenth
reached the fork in the road, one way to the
Oregon Trail and the other to the Hastings cutoff. They
turned left to the shortcut. This cutoff would end up
(13:15):
adding one hundred and twenty five miles to their journey
and weeks of time on the trail. At this turn,
the leader would shift and it would become the Donner Party.
In the later afternoons and evenings, they noticed the weather
shifting and chilling temperatures and winds were Starting July twenty seventh,
(13:36):
they arrived at Fort Bridger and they raced ahead to
meet the then famous Lanceford Hastings, but Hastings wasn't there.
He had left with previous impatient settlers wanting to move on.
They stayed three days there at the fort eleven days
(13:58):
before the Donner Party of Rod it had rained. When
the clouds from the rain storm broke, it revealed snow
on the mountains, and then temperatures had dropped from the
eighties to the forties, winter was knocking at the door
and hard. Others in the train were very worried about
(14:22):
the shift in the weather. Another guide discouraged them from
taking the cutoff. The smaller group had ridden ahead and
wrote the wagon party detailed instructions again to go around
and not take the cutoff, but the notes of caution
never reached the party. James Reid wrote to a friend
(14:46):
that he expected the road to be level and was
excited that the cutoff took hundreds of miles off the trail.
As they continued on and soon were met with more
bad circumstances. An ox had been lost and the road
was not smooth as promised. They had to ride over
(15:06):
hills and valleys, and Hastings had secured a note to
a sage bush. Of all things, He wrote, they should
send a party ahead to help guide them. There were
trees and brush all throughout, so not very passable for
wagons and people to just easily move through them. They
(15:28):
reached Hastings and they demanded that he ride back with
them and guide them. Part way into the journey, he
quits the mission Douchebag Award of the Year. He explained
he needed to return to his other caravan and that
the best he could do was lead James Reed to
a peak called Big Mountain, east of Salley. At the
(15:51):
Big Mountain, he only gave vague instructions and then straight
up bailed. They would never see him again. Reid returned
to the party and gave them another trail. Another family,
the Graves family, joined up with the Donner family to
join them in the last portion of the journey. For
(16:12):
those who know how the story ends, that was a
major bad decision on the Graves's part. Now the entirety
of the parties headed to the Salt Lake Desert. End
of August, Luke Halaran dies of tuberculosis. He was buried
at the fork in the road. Another note was found
(16:32):
from Hastings warning them of another two day drive ahead.
So they collect grass from their animals and water for them,
and three days into this two day journey they run
out of water. They experienced mirages and a set of
oxen stampede and run off in search of water, never
(16:56):
to be seen again. Five days into their two day journey,
thanks again Hastings, they finished the harrowing crossing of the desert.
They had lost thirty six head of cattle and four
wagons had to be abandoned. They found a water source,
but they discovered they didn't have enough food to make
(17:18):
it to California. They set back out on September tenth,
and six days later they experienced a snowstorm. This was
Mother Nature's first take to let them know of their
snowy future. Early October, while struggling up a sandy hill
at Iron Point, Nevada, the teams became entangled. A fight
(17:41):
breaks out and Red is hit on the head by
a man named John Snyder. The fight continues, Reed's wife
gets hit on the head. I'm not sure if it's
by accident or on purpose by Snyder, and Reed stabs
Snyder and kills him for this. He is exiled. Now
(18:03):
I understand that they are trying to kind of have
justice and maintain morale and rules, but clearly this trip
is already not going correctly, and now you're going to
exile somebody, but in the future turn out that might
actually have helped them. So he's exiled with nothing but
clothes and a horse. Luckily, his daughter sneaks out and
(18:28):
brings him his arm, you know, his gun, his knife.
Some provisions that they some some that they still had,
so at least he had a chance back on the
road right. The next day, another incident, an elderly man
and the party is turned out of his wagon trying
(18:49):
to lighten the load, as everyone who can walk is walking.
They've pretty much walked this whole time just to try
and save the strength. More weight is going to slow
them down and cause more wear and tear on their oxen.
So they turn out this old man and nobody else
wants to take him in, and he is last seen
(19:11):
sitting by the side of a road because he cannot
go any further. October eleventh, eighteen forty six, at night,
pioed Indians kill twenty one of the Donner's oxen. Another
eighteen of the oxen are taken, and several others are wounded.
I don't know if few creeps are catching a trend here,
(19:32):
but this poor party of pioneers just could not catch
a break and you know, or just make a good
decision really, so moving on. It was the last week
of October and winter was already starting to set in. Now,
if you're keeping tabs again or know the story, this
is when things really start to descend into the pit
(19:54):
of despair. The cold, the snow, and depleted food sources
have caught up with the traveling party, and things are
about to go from bad to worst, circumstances imaginable. On
Halloween night, they reached Trucky Lake. They went around the
north side and discovered a small cabin. We'll call it.
(20:18):
It's kind of more just a kind of a storage area.
They fed their hungry cattle cut pieces of pine branches,
you know, because that's the snow was covering everything else
so they couldn't eat off of the ground. That night,
they camp and slept under a clear sky and a
full moon. They noticed a halo which told these Midwest
(20:39):
farmers a storm was approaching, and the next morning the
snow began to fall. The snow began to fall so
hard it buried the wagons almost up to the axles,
and they had to make a decision to abandon the
wagons all together. They turned back to lower elevation to
a band to that at the low bandoned cabin that
(21:01):
they had crossed earlier. They just could not go any further.
They had traveled two thousand, five hundred miles and were
only one hundred miles from the next big fort, but
it might as well have been another thousand miles. The
most demoralizing part was that they had missed their window
(21:22):
by one day because the snowstorm one day, and they
would have been ahead of this big snowstorm. All the
late starts, random delays, fights, and choosing the hastings cut
off they would have made it, so now they're stuck.
The snow had hit the next day. They tried once
(21:44):
more to advance, but after a mile or so they
had to turn back. The snow was so heavy that
night they have to kill the last of their cattle
for hides to cover the tops of the shack and
the meat to eat. It snowed heavy for eight straight days,
keeping them from building additional cabins that would have been
(22:08):
needed to be kind of sustainable. Somehow, over the winter,
they knew they would be there until the snow broke.
As the winter moved forward, they bartered the last of
their sickly animals amongst each other, with only a small
celebration when they managed to kill a bear, only after
the bear almost killed them. Then the exiled read and
(22:30):
two others had made it to the other side. In
the history books, we learn that the exiled. Read and
two others traveling companions will call it. They weren't from
the party obviously, had made it to the other side
of the mountains. They assembled food and fresh animals and
(22:50):
started back on a rescue mission. Read and his traveling
companions had come across a couple the courteses that had
left the larger party earlier on based on a disagreement,
and they joined the couple for a meal. When they
were scooped a portion out of a Dutch oven for
a meal, they had no idea that it was the
(23:14):
couple's pet dog that they were eating. They promised that
they would come back for them once they had found
and rescued the Donner party. They continued and the snow
hammered down. At one point the only thing visible was
the neck of the horses. The snow was too soft
(23:34):
and deep they had to turn back. They dug the
horses out and returned to the couple at the campsite,
and then returned to the fort. Meanwhile, back at the campsite,
the Donner party were now resorting to bark eating bark,
and the occasional lucky hit like a mangy timber wolf.
(23:55):
If they managed to get lucky. The small amounts of
meat and fat were given first to the children and
the elderly. One of the party, Stanton, last named Stanton,
decided that they could make snow shoes to try and
get across the snow. December fifteenth, the first recorded death
in the camps occur. A young man dies of malnutrition.
(24:21):
Later that day, Jacob Donner passes along with two other men.
On December sixteenth, after there was a break in the snow,
a group of seventeen men, women and children leave the
main camp with eight pounds of dried beef, little sugar,
and coffee, possibly enough to stay alive for six days.
(24:45):
One man, Stanton, got horrible snow blindness, swollen eyes, blind
and unable to move forward on his own. He was
seen smoking his pipe and was asked by one of
the the younger folk in the crew there if he
was okay, and he told them he would be along shortly.
(25:07):
The small party departed and Stanton was never seen again. Meanwhile,
back at the main camp, three year old Eliza said
that they captured and ate little field mice that had
crept into the camp. The scrap pieces of beef hide
were scraped and boiled until it was the consistency of glue,
(25:30):
and then swallowed the best that they could. Bones that
had no more marrow were burned and eaten. Pine scraps
were consumed to try and curb their hunger and get
some nutrition. The snowshoe crew continued wandering through the snow
like zombies. Patrick Dolland was the first to think the
(25:51):
unthinkable and said they should draw sticks or lots to
see who would sacrifice themselves first. They drew lots to duel.
Dollard drew the shortest ouch, but they ended up not
following through with it, but their status as a group
(26:12):
rapidly deteriorated. Another man in the party, Franklin Grave, died
shortly after a large gust blew out their fire, so
he probably just that little bit of warmth was what
was helping him hang on, but before he expired he
begged that they should eat him to survive. Dolan woke
(26:35):
up the camp Christmas morning shrieking and screaming, suffering from hypothermia.
He was delirious. They managed to calm him down and
he fell into a deep sleep and never woke up.
They were finally able to get a rolling fire from
a large pine. The rule was that no one would
(26:57):
have to consume a relative, even in times of desperation.
A moral compass was present. They were just trying to
survive and not be savages. A young man just thirteen
years old had become delirious, just was so hungry, and
he ate a whole mouse alive, with his delirium increasing.
(27:23):
After having to know what he did, he laid on
his sister's lap and just passed away. December thirtieth, they
left the now labeled camp, which is now known as
the Camp of Death, and their journey continued on with
blood tracing in the snow. Their feet had been bloodied
(27:47):
just because of all of this horrible. You know, it's wet,
it's cold, they're not able to go, and now it's
passing through their moccasins. New Year's Eve, they ate the
last of the human meat. Patrick Breen's diary read last
of the Year. May we, with God's help, spend the
(28:11):
coming year better than the past, which we purpose to do.
If Almighty God will deliver us from our present dreadful situation,
which is our prayer, If the will of God sees
it fitting for us, Amen, The snowshoers continue and come
across a blooded trail. They find the two natives that
(28:33):
had been traveling with the larger group, but they had
left due to a growing concern that they themselves would
find themselves as part of a hate crime and possibly
a meal. Now they were laying prone on the ground
at the base of a tree. Out of energy and
unable to continue walking, The women moved out of the way,
(28:57):
and then two men shot them in the head with
the right The nutrition gained from their corpses was enough
energy to allow them to find an Indian trail two
days later. Ironically enough, the same tribe that the two
men that had been consumed were part of. The natives,
not knowing this information, nursed the party back to health,
(29:20):
and some of them were taken to a couple's house nearby.
Seventeen snowshoers had left the original camp to try and
find help. Now only two men and five women remained
of that group. Back at the main area the Trucky
Lake camp, the conditions were deplorable. January thirty first, eighteen
(29:42):
forty seven, the first relief party was able to leave
Sutter's Fort. February nineteenth, the rescue party makes it to
the camp. It's quiet, so quiet they are unsure if
anybody is even there. Then a skeletal woman emerged from
(30:03):
the hole in the snow. She asked, are you men
from California? Or are you from heaven? She believed these
men were possibly a mirage. Nine members of the lake
camp were dead, and a baby had succumbed to death
the night the rescuers arrived. How a baby could have
(30:23):
made it this long, and I'm sure there were other
babies just due to the cold and the nutrition is
a miracle in my opinion. The rescuers doled out food
very carefully, knowing that with starvation, if they ate too fast,
they potentially could kill. Not all of the party could
be rescued in one go, they knew they were going
(30:45):
to have to do this in a few groupings. They
took a section of the stranded and knew they would
have to return for them in a week. In between
rescue missions, the camp went from bad to worst case scenario.
When they returned, dismembered corpses and body parts were strewn everywhere.
(31:07):
The children of Donner sat on a nearby log eating
the heart of their father. Blood staining their cheeks and chin.
They completely ignored the rescuers. Around the campfire were fragments
of bone and skin. Mister Reed was with his rescue
party and discovered his faithful wagon driver. His head and
(31:33):
face had not been touched, but the rest of him had.
The rescue mission was not the last. The third and
fourth mission returned. They found kettle inside was human skin.
The rescuers found the last survivor, Louis Keysburg. In his room,
(31:54):
they found a pan of water that contained a fresh
liver and lungs. He had eaten Tamsen Donner, George Donner's wife,
even though he swore he did not take her life.
He was the last to be rescued. Eighty one people
made it to those mountains. Forty five of them survived.
(32:17):
Most were physically scarred from frostbite and malnutrition. Afterwards, all
were emotionally scarred and what they had to do to
survive for about eight months. The stories of this horrible
tale shocked people in all of the kind of media
outlets into not attempting the journey. But after all this horror,
(32:42):
Sutter and his business partner had started a business and
accidentally started the gold rush after discovering the flakes while
they were building the business that they had recently began,
with the people shifting from land fever to gold fever
after that. So what about Hastings? That was what I
wanted to know at the end of this tale. Did
(33:04):
Karma catch up to him ultimately? Yes, but not in
the way I maybe had hoped during this story kind
of unraveling all of the pieces I really wanted to
hear justice was served by the people of the Daughner Party,
but that was not what happened. After California was conquered
(33:28):
by the United States, his chances of that empire of
being the top dog and ruling that area had crumbled.
He served as the territorial judge to Yuma, Arizona, after
his family moved there in the eighteen fifties. During the
Civil War, he sided with the South, and he was
promoted to rank of major in the Confederate States Army.
(33:51):
He died in Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands in
eighteen seventy, possibly due to yellow fever. So, if we're lucky,
it wasn't fun for him. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode slightly different than usual. But history lessons can have
a creepy side too, So thanks for coming to class.
(34:13):
Before I wrap up today, I want to thank the
creep Nation for making twenty twenty four a great year,
more episodes, more listeners, and our first convention. This was
our last episode for the year and we look forward
to seeing you all next year. We will be starting
the year off with some fun episodes and the live
(34:34):
streams will be back. Join us January seventeenth, twenty twenty
five for if you're listening to this in the Way
Way Future. Over on our YouTube channel, we will be
welcoming Leslie and Stephen Shaw to come and talk about
their book and the cool things that they know about.
All of our links are in the episode details for
(34:56):
that episode, as well as all of our other ones
in the past. Until next year, we'll catch you right
here on Creepy Confidential.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Hey, I'm Gina and I'm Amber, and we are here
to bring you the weird true crime podcast where we
cover true crime cases that will leave you asking yourself,
did that really happen. We'll dive into well known and
not so known cases throughout history. Some are unsolved and
some are just unbelievable. We'll also talk about current news
(35:38):
topics that range from kooky to questionable on episodes that
we like to call weird Headline. Be sure to subscribe
and listen on your favorite podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Service on Wiki travel. The Pacific Northwest is best known
for its beautiful coastline, green interior, rainy weather, and spectacular mountains.
But because of all this, it's also the perfect place
(36:08):
to go missing.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
My name's Carmita, and I grew up in the Pacific
Northwest and Portland, Oregon. I host a podcast called Missing
in the PNW. My podcast is different from others you
may have heard because I focus specifically on two things.
The first is that all of the missing person cases
that I cover are strictly from the Pacific Northwest and
Oregon and Washington. I know the title of my podcast
(36:33):
should have given that one away. The second thing is
that my podcast focuses strictly on missing persons from marginalized
communities such as the black, Hispanic, Native American Indigenous people
and the LGBTQ plus communities, you know, the ones that
get absolutely no media attention. Now, I am not an
(36:53):
investigative journalist or a reporter. I'm actually a widowed mom
of three who loves crime and has a passion for
social justice. So join me in helping to spread the
word on these missing person cases and help you the
voice for the ones that are now voiceless. You can
find Missing in the PNW on all of the major
streaming apps, as well as on socials at Missing in
(37:17):
the PNW podcast. If you have a case you want
me to cover, please email me at Missing in THEPNW
at gmail dot com or send me a message through
Facebook Messenger. I hope to talk to you soon, and remember,
have fun, but be safe.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.