Roads Less Taken III: From Drifters to Shadows

What do you leave behind when you hang a man like Stephen Dee Richards? Just a confession and a grave… or something more?

In this third Roads Less Taken journey, we travel north from the gallows of Minden, Nebraska, through haunted cabins, forgotten asylums, and cursed fields, ending at the edge of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Along the way, we fill in the gaps left behind in The Nebraska Fiend and stop at the eerie and the unexplained:

• Big Sandy Creek and the ghost of “Impaled”
• The cursed ground of the Harrelson family massacre
• Whispering tunnels beneath the Mount Pleasant Asylum
• Drownings and weeping ghosts on the Platte River
• Devil’s Nest, Spooklight Highway, and the Vigilante Tree
• And finally, the quiet dread of Pine Ridge...

This is the path from drifters to shadows. And the roads Less Taken never forget.

Content warning: This episode includes references to death, suicide, and unsettling historical violence. For support, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.


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If you're new to LT, Season Four: Hollowlands contains four different episode types:

1. Full-length real-life horror stories (~1 hr)
2. Previews of full-length stories
3. 7-Minute Less Taken stories
4. Transitional/Crossover episodes call 'Roads Less Taken'


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Let's take and contains content that may not be suitable
for all audiences.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listeners, discretion is advised.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Less you're listening to the third Roads Less Taken episode

(00:33):
called from Drifters to Shadows. In our Roads Less Taken episodes,
we explore a few details we left out from our
previous story before we travel over to the next day.
So in this case, we'll cover a few details left
out of the Nebraska Fiend episode as we make our
way over to South Dakota for seven seven minute episodes

(00:56):
of Less Taken in July. Please let us know what
you think of the episode by leaving a fair rating
and review when you're done, and you can also leave
a review at lesstakanpod dot com. Explore all things Less
Taken there as well as our merch and follow us
before we follow you on Facebook, Instagram and threads under

(01:17):
the handle at Less Taken Pod. I'm Seam Humphreys and
this has Roads lest Taken from Drifters the Shadows. Hope
you enjoy. We leave mindon Behind where Stephen d Richards

(02:37):
met the Hangman's noose, but we're not quite done with
him yet. Because if you listen to our last full episode,
Nebraska fiend, which you should have You probably noticed we
left out a few pieces things that might have taken
us too far, of course, from the main narrative. Today,

(02:57):
we're going to explore what else happened while Richards worked
at the asylum in Iowa, what happened to that house
after the murders, And we'll cover a couple of details
from our latest seven minute episode called Impaled and why
people still whisper about Big Sandy Creek. Then we'll head
north across the Nebraskan back roads and into South Dakota,

(03:21):
stopping at some eerie, haunted, or just plain odd pit
stops along the way. Once we arrive in July, we're
going to provide seven seven minute, less taken episodes for
the seventh month of the year. So if you're ready,
let's go ahead and explore the asylum years for Stephen Richards.

(03:43):
Richards claimed he worked at Mount Pleasant Asylum for nearly
three years. By all accounts, that claim may very well
hold up. The Iowa Hospital for the Insane was known
for its overcrowded wards underpaid attendant in questionable treatments. When

(04:03):
disease outbreaks ran through the facility, bodies piled up, many unclaimed,
many undocumented. What if Richards's jobs caul them to the
furnace or out to the shallow plots. One orderly later remarked.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
He never fledged quite kid.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
The asylum kept poor records, but surviving locke show a
gap of two weeks before his dismissal, no reason listed
and no inquiry. Next, let's look at the time he
murdered that cowboy near Kearney. In a disposition taken after

(04:49):
his arrest, Richards describes a knight at the ranch outside
of Kearney. He claimed a young man named Bill was
asking questions, maybe too many. That night Richards watched him
from the shadows of the barn, pistol, drawn one clean shot,

(05:12):
buried in loose earth by morning. While researching, we found
a missing person's report from that same month. William Harrow, nineteen,
last seen near Kearney, never found. It's likely he was
just one of nine of Richard's victims. While looking into

(05:36):
a few more details regarding the murders, some say after
the murders, neighbors suspected something was off, but Richards still
remained quiet and demonstrated somewhat orderly behavior. The house stayed
empty for months. Eventually it was torn down and a

(05:57):
new one was built in its place, but something wasn't right.
One farmer's wife refused to sleep there, said she saw
shadows under the floorboards at night. She claimed to hear
footsteps in the pantry, and she left after just one winter.

(06:17):
Today there's no trace of the original house, but some
neighbors still avoid that patch of earth. Some avoid the
creek altogether. Here in just a moment, we're going to
take our eerie road trip to South Dakota. But before that,
I want to let you know, if you stick around

(06:39):
all the way to the end of this episode, we're
going to do a replay of our only other episode
of Less Taken from South Dakota called Ditched. I have
to say this is one of my favorite episodes from
season three, so be sure to stick around and check
it out. After we explore some of the eerie spots
as we travel the roads, let's take over to South Dakota.

(07:32):
You might remember the seven minute Less Taken story Impaled.
If not, check that one out too, it won't take
much of your time. It's about James, a man who
fell ill on a wagon, tongue and let out, only
for his wife to be found dead and untouched beneath
the oak tree. The cabin was dismantled moved here to

(07:54):
Big Sandy Creek, or that's the story, at least in
Some campers say you can still hear a creaking floorboard
when no one's there, or see a light in the
woods that vanishes when you get close. Some say the
tree branches tap the ground when there's no wind. Is
it true?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
We don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
We'd like to walk the trail, but we haven't yet,
nor have we really discerned exactly where it's at. But
if you know, please write to us at let's take
in pod dot com. Next you can backtrack just briefly,
and you'll pass the original location of the Harroson farm

(08:37):
where Mary and her children met their fate at Richards's hands.
Of course, with this comes its own legend. Some say
dogs even refuse to cross that ground, machinery breaks there.
In one time, a child even wandered into the field
and came out crying, saying a man with no face

(08:58):
was standing by the well. Though east of our route,
we can revisit, or at least in memory, Mount Pleasant Asylum.
Mount Pleasant asylum stood until around twenty fifteen, with its

(09:20):
wings mostly repurposed, but some said the tunnels beneath the
old structure still existed. Staff used to talk of lights
going out, journey's rolling unaided, and there was even one
haul where it reportedly the temperature dropped without any warning.
So maybe Richard's didn't just learn indifference there, maybe something

(09:44):
followed him out. Now, we couldn't completely transition from Nebraska
to South Dakota without covering a favorite place for ghost stories,
the Platte River. More than one drowning victim has been
recovered here with no clear cause. One man was pulled

(10:08):
from a sandbar with fingernail marks along his arms, but
no one else was seen in the water. Campers say
they hear coughing across the river. Others claim they've seen
a woman dragging wet hair along the riverbank weeping. But
whatever the case is between reality and fiction, the platt

(10:32):
River is still good for the creeps. Next, we'll take
a look at Devil's Nest. I'm going to go ahead
and apologize for saying this location wrong, but off a
remote ridge near Neo Brara. I'm sorry, what off of

(10:58):
a remote ridge near Niobrera Devil's Nest is an overgrown
bluff marked by twisted trees and hollow sounding wind. Local
folklore says nothing grows there. A native legend warns up
a spirit that drives men mad. In the nineteen sixties,
a failed ski resort tried to open nearby, only the

(11:21):
shutter after a rash of worker injuries and a fire
that no one could explain. The cliffs overlook the Missouri River,
and sometimes they say the river stares back. Our next
stop will be along the Nebraska South Dakota border, a

(11:41):
little place called Spookolite Highway. On certain nights near the border,
drivers have reported floating lights in the distance, always ahead,
but never quite reachable. One couple said the lights circled
their car before vanishing. Another man and swerved and hit
a ditch trying to chase one down. No source has

(12:05):
ever been confirmed. Some say it's swamp gas. Others say
it's the spirits of native messengers still traveling, or next stop,
let's travel over the brule South Dakota, where we're going
to find the Vigilante Tree. In the eighteen eighties, a

(12:29):
group of settlers took the law into their own hands,
three accused horse thieves were hanged from the same cottonwood
tree on the outskirts of town. Two were later found
to be innocent. The tree still stands, twisted in black,
and for the teenagers who know about the legends, they

(12:50):
dare each other to touch it, because some say you'll
feel a hand reaching out and grabbing your wrist. Our
last stop is going to be in Pine Ridge this
time shadow Falls. The roads are mostly quiet out here,

(13:11):
empty houses, open fields. It's a place where a shadow
meets history and pain leaves fingerprints. We're being kind of
vague here because that story that's next time, Unless Taken
when we cross over into South Dakota for our brand

(13:31):
new batch of real life horror stories. Stick around at
the end of this episode for the replay of Ditched,
the only other story we've told from South Dakota so far,
and what we'll say is a DWI story like you've
never heard before. I'm Cum Humphreys and this is less

(13:52):
taken real life horror stories from the Midwest. Once again,
Thanks for listening, and I hope you join us next
Tuesday for the first or verse seven seven minutes. Let's
take in episodes in July let's take and contains content

(14:36):
that may not be suitable for all audiences listeners.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Discretion is advised.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Lest guest, December twelfth, nineteen ninety two, Lake Andy, South Dakota.
It's nearly six am in the morning, young adults. It's
not the start of a new day. It's the end

(15:05):
of a long night. Arnold archen Vaux, twenty, his girlfriend
Ruby nineteen, and her sister Tracy, seventeen, all huddle inside
of Arnold's car as they pull up to a stop
sign along the border of a yank en Sioux reservation site.

(15:34):
It's been an incredibly long night of drinking and partying,
yet despite that, the three of them intend on enjoying
a couple more hours before they cash out. None of
them are in any condition to drive, but if it's
got to be anyone, it might as well be Arnold.

(15:55):
It's a frigid December morning. Nearly everything has been frozen over,
perhaps in the clutches of a drunken stupor. The weather
and the road conditions hardly matter to Arnold right now,
and Ruby and Tracy might be having too much fun
to pay any attention. Besides, they're though on the vehicle

(16:17):
on the road. The moment they pull out into the intersection,
Arnold in the gang can feel the tires slip along
the icy road. Traction is completely lost. Ruby and Tracy
scream blood curdling screams in the passenger seats while Arnold
fights to regain control of the car. Drifting, the car

(16:40):
continues to skirt across the road. It spins and clips
the edge, hurling the car and its three young occupants
off of the highway and onto a frozen ditch below.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Bro who's in there is anyone in that?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Are you okaya?

Speaker 1 (17:30):
The dark, frozen South Dakota landscape still spinning around her.
Tracy comes to and here's the sound of someone outside
of the car. She's upside down, staring at the ceiling
and the thick ice outside of the shattered windows.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Miss, are you okay?

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Tracy glances around the car. Arnold's gone, Ruby's nowhere in sight.
She's alone inside the smashed car. Where the hell did
everyone else go?

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Mits? Are you okay? Are you okay? Miss? Are you okay?

Speaker 1 (18:40):
You're listening to Ditch? The latest episode from Let's Take
in season three. In this episode, we explore a d
WY case from South Dakota one like you'd never heard
before and it's all absolutely true. Please let us know
what you think of this episode by leaving a fair

(19:00):
rating and review wherever you're listening. You can also leave
reviews at our official website, let's taking pod dot com. There,
not only can you leave reviews, but you can also
find all of our episodes, additional media notes, merch recommend
future stories, and so much more. Speaking of the merch,

(19:22):
check out let's takingpod dot com right now through December
twenty first, twenty twenty four for a special holiday sale.
Every single item in the merch shop has a special
Selle price. Order before December second for your best shot
at delivery during the holiday season. And if you truly

(19:42):
like Less Taken, be sure to hit subscribe with auto
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to provide samples and you'll be the first to know
what story we're going to cover next. I've seen Humphreys

(20:04):
and this is Less Taken real life horror stories from
the Midwest. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
Ditch anyone in there?

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Are you okay?

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Tracy can't believe what's happening. She's heard horrific tales of
impaired driving, but there's no way she ever thought she'd
become part of some statistic. It's the nineteen nineties. There's
a lot more drunk driving than one might think, and
plenty of people get away with it just fine. The

(21:25):
recent dw widelaw might change that, but regardless. Here she
is half drunk and trapped in an upside down car
in the middle of nowhere. There's the sound of the
slippery intersection, the sound of laughter inside of the car,
before it's replaced by a squeal of tires sliding across
the road, and screams. Even though everything happened so quickly,

(21:52):
Tracy can remember quite a few details. She's not certain
when Arnold decided to bail on them, but she remembers
struggling to escape the car alongside Ruby. Both of them
cry out into the night, begging for someone to help them.
Tracy squirms in her seat while Ruby angles her arm

(22:14):
and begins smashing her elbow into the passenger door, still
calling for help. At the top of their lungs. Ruby
hits the door harder and harder, until finally the car
door cracks open just enough for Ruby to slide through.

(22:35):
Relief washes over Tracy as she watches her friend wedge
the door open wider and slide outside onto the frozen ditch.
Once Ruby is out, it's Tracy's turn, or so she thinks.
The moment Tracy goes to make her way over, the
door closes behind Ruby, and punching the door to no avail,

(23:02):
all Tracy can do is watch as her friend's shoes
walk past the window and then merge into the darkness.

(23:32):
Tracy doesn't know whether her friends were trying to reach
out for help or if they simply escape together, leaving
Ruby's little sister to fend for herself on the ice.
The latter is not entirely improbable.

Speaker 4 (23:47):
See.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Arnold and Ruby aren't some fleeting romance. They've been together
for years now, ever since they met as teenagers in
high school. Dating throughout the years, what began as puppy
love quickly turns into a real relationship. Arnold is well
to do and never gets into much trouble at school.

(24:09):
In fact, at one point he's the prom king Ruby
is known for being light hearted and easy to laugh. However,
some of their shine is tarnished when they become parents.
That both of them except the fact that they're going
to be parents and don't run away from it. The
trouble with Ruby and Arnold raising a child is the

(24:32):
fact that there's still very much children themselves. They're not
quite ready to slow things down and give up on
their social lives and ambitions. Teens through their twenties are
meant to be some of the most fun years of
their lives, but now they have to give that up
so soon. December eleventh, nineteen ninety one, This line of

(24:56):
thinking leads the couple in Tracy to an all night
bender that stretches out until the next morning. Arnold and
Ruby's daughter Erica, stays behind with Grandpa Charlie so everyone
else can get lost in the sauce. But that doesn't
mean that Arnold and Ruby or negligent or selfish or
anything like that, not entirely. Right before six am on

(25:20):
December twelfth, the three of them drive up the Ruby's
house and meet Grandpa Charlie in the driveway. They're there
to check up on the baby and possibly call it
a night. Erica is sound asleep inside of the house.
When the gang arrives. Charlie studies the three of them
and quickly notices that they're in no shape to be

(25:43):
in charge of a baby. He asks if they've been
doing a bit of drinking, and they all confess. Charlie
feels there's no reason for the three of them that
stumbled around inside and wake little Erica up from her slumber.
Charlie says he's fine to watch Erica until later in
the afternoon. Next unbeknownst to Charlie, he gives the three

(26:06):
of them some terrible advice. He tells them to go
along and headback on out to enjoy the rest of
the night. Sheriff Deputy Youngstrom, and local authorities come through

(26:48):
the frozen ditch and the surrounding area for months as
winter slowly morphs into spring. Tracy's made a full recovery
from the crash and mental exposure, but Arnold and Ruby
are still nowhere to be found. During the first few days,
surely there's some hope that the young couple might return

(27:10):
to the yankd En Sioux reservation. Ruby's mother expects her
to call at some point to let her know that
she's okay, and maybe she's just hiding out with Arnold
somewhere for whatever reason. Now, after so much time has
passed the community and the police have their doubts. At

(27:31):
this point. If Arnold and Ruby met their demises, they
want to at least find their bodies, hopefully somewhere near
the crash site. Otherwise they might need to consider foul play.
Young stroman The police spend long days in sleepless nights,

(27:53):
coming through the intersection the road and slowly thawing ditch.
They even trace the nearby tracks high or low. It
doesn't matter where they look. Arnold and Ruby never turn up.
Youngstrom himself trudges through every last inch of the ditch,
not a single clue. They even spread out to cover

(28:16):
the nearby lake. Maybe Arnold and Ruby headed out in
search of help, only to fall through the cracking ice.
Falling through the ice near the ditch would be bad enough,
but who knows how deep they might have fallen through
the frozen lake. There would be no easy escape for them. Then,

(28:38):
at March tenth, nineteen ninety three, a passer bind a
truck notices something unusual near the crash site and phones
it in to the police. He suggests that they take
another look around the ditch, as he swears he's seen
the corpse of a young female. Police scurried to the

(29:04):
scene and discovered Ruby's body, faced down, floating in the ditch,
no more than seventy five feet from where the car
slipped off the road and flipped over onto the ice.
Her glasses and shoes are both missing, Her clothes are
the same as the night of the accident, but her
body is so decayed that the police have to use

(29:26):
a tattoo to identify her. In young Strum's.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Mind, there's no way Ruby could have been at the
exact spot all of this time.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Sure, maybe she walked away and fell into the ice.
At first, young Strum might not have noticed it, but
now that it's getting warmer, there's no way he or
his cohorts could have missed seeing her body. He's traced
all three of their steps dozens of times. How could
he have missed this? How could Ruby be next to

(30:00):
the rex site almost three months later? And another concerning question,
where's Arnold? As Deputy Bill Youngstrum in the Charles Micks

(30:37):
County Sheriff Department search for Arnold, they have to consider
any motivation he might have had for fleeing the scene
of the accident. Tracy's able to recount her final moments
with Ruby, yet when it comes to Arnold, she doesn't
remember him leaving the car at all. Either she was
knocked out for a few moments or he escaped long

(30:58):
before she and Ruby trapped upside down. If so, why
One thing young Strum considers a possibility is a more
recent DW wide law that went into effect. Assuming Arnold
had his fair share of libations, he could have been

(31:19):
held responsible for any injury or death to his passengers,
Ruby and Tracy. Perhaps, given his outstanding citizenship, Arnold was
terrified of what kind of damage the accident could do
to his reputation amongst the young ensue. Maybe Arnold assumed
everyone else was dead. It's possible that Arnold had all

(31:43):
of these worries and more flogging up his mind, leading
him their brash decision making, and in short, he was scared,
so he ran Deputy. Young Strum suspects if Arnold was
truly worried about DWI, he most likely would have returned
a few days later to clean things up. Of course,

(32:07):
he never does now. If one assumes Arnold had no
suspicious motives, there's a chance that he and Ruby got
lost or fell through the ice. Maybe the elements got
to them. Tracy's body is well decayed by the time
police locator in March. The very next day after the discovery,

(32:29):
Arnold washes up just a few feet away from where
the police discovered Ruby. What's troublesome is that, unlike Ruby's body,
Arnold isn't as decayed. In fact, his body is rather
well preserved. His flesh isn't as pale. It doesn't appear

(32:49):
that he was frozen for as long or if ever.
His clothes almost looked fresh, possibly different than the night
of the accident, and they too aren't frozen to the ground.
How was any of this possible? Both Ruby and Arnold's

(33:42):
bodies are sent to be autopsied, but the results only
make the investigative waters that much murkier. The autopsies affirm
some things the police already suspect, such as the fact
that both Arnold and Ruby were drunk the night of
the accident zero point one eight drunk. Some expect that

(34:03):
the drug screenings to come back positive, possibly in a
few different areas, but both of them are clean. Ultimately,
the coroner concludes that Arnold and Ruby died from exposure
versus drowning. This blanket statement is of little use to
the police. Obviously, the elements did quite a bit of

(34:24):
damage have not been the cause of death, but only
for Ruby. Arnold's corpse was too pristine for this to
be the sole cause of his death, and it doesn't
explain why, if both of them went missing on the
same night, how they ended up in such completely different
states of decomposition to their dismay, the coroner can't conclude

(34:48):
a date or time of death for either one of them.
As far as drowning is concerned, the police never found
any proof that Arnold and Ruby wandered off from the car,
fell through the thinner eye, and drowned in the icy waters. Plus,
there's no way that Deputy young Strum or any of
the investigators could have missed a couple of drowned bodies

(35:10):
in the exact location that they were searching, right next
to the scene of the car accident. Lastly, the autopsies
revealed no signs of foul play. While there wasn't much
evidence to suggest foul play, the circumstances surrounding direct and
the two disappearances are just too mysterious to rule it out.

(35:34):
Maybe it had to do with the fact that they
were both First natives. Maybe it was infighting, but no,
there's nothing out of line here, just death by exposure.
And Deputy young Strum's.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Words, death by exposure is kind of to me. It's
just like they prove the death and I can't actually
buy that. They may have proved the death, but they
did not freeze the death at that dish. That's impossible
that they could have been there.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
The entire three months, and to the Deputy's point, he
searched the area several times. His team searched the area
even further. The police even have affidavits confirming no bodies
were ever discovered near the reck site over the course
of those long three months.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
They could have been there, they could have been missed.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Shortly after discovering the bodies of Arnold and Ruby, there's
another break into the case. Along to once frozen asphalt,
police discover a lock of dark hair just down the road.
Suspicious that these thick strains of hair might belong to

(37:13):
their victims, the police send the hair off to a
forensic laboratory and anxiously await the results. When Deputy Youngstrum
and the rest of the police officers hear of the results,
they are baffled yet not completely surprised at the same time.
Lab results prove that the lock of hair belongs to Ruby. However,

(37:38):
there's no logical way the hair could have been there
in such perfect condition. If she truly died due to
exposure to the deadly winter elements, her hair should have
frozen close to her body. This lack of hair makes
it look as though her body was relocated more recently,

(37:58):
quite possibly after death. Did this mean Ruby escaped the
car wreck but died somewhere other than where her body
was found. Is the loose lock of hair a sign
of some kind of struggle? Did Arnold and Ruby have
an argument during their escapes? And what if Arnold was

(38:20):
scared but Ruby wanted to come clean and get help
for her cousin. None of these questions are ever answered
again in Deputy Youngstrum's.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Words, that hair couldn't have stayed there for three months.
In my opinion, it was when whoever brought the body
back to the ditch, and that's when that piece of
hair fell up with Ruby.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
What frustrates young Strum even more is that when you
found Arnold's body, he retrieved the set of keys from
his pocket. Some of them appeared to be for a vehicle,
couple of them were ostensibly house keys. The deputy never
finds the car or the house that any of the

(39:07):
keys belong to, so why did Arnold have them? New

(39:43):
Year's Eve, nineteen ninety two. It's a dark, cold night
as a car slows down in front of a small
gathering at friends what some might consider a New Year's
Eve house party, but nothing too crazy. Embraced by a
thick coat, stands outside and waves a car down, all

(40:05):
while calling out for Arnold. Part of her likely expects
the car to keep moving along. Maybe she didn't see
who she thought she saw, But instead the car actually
slows down. It's as though whoever is inside can't ignore

(40:26):
the fact that she's shouting out his name in the
middle of the silent night. The window rolls down as
the car comes to a stop. Without a doubt in
her mind, she sees Arnold accompanied by two other young adults.
She's not sure what they're up to exactly, but they

(40:47):
all make small talk before wishing each other a good night.
The young woman makes nothing out of this until she
hears of the car accident. It's then that she immediately
makes the report to the police, adding another layer of
mystery to this already bewildering case. The young woman who

(41:39):
claims that witness Arnold three weeks after the crash, agrees
to come over to the police station for a polygraph test.
She swears she saw Arnold. She goes on to explain
that they were actually good friends, but she wasn't immediately
aware of what happened with the wreck until after spotting him.

(42:04):
She passes her test with flying colors. What's interesting is
that the couple that was spotted with Arnold on New
Year's Eve also agrees to come in for polygraph interviews,
but they don't go nearly as well. They're asked if
they know Arnold and if they were with him that night.

(42:27):
They swear that they do not and were not. They
both failed their polygraphs. Despite failing their test, the couple
continues to swear ignorance and innocence through the rest of
the interviews, and everything that is holy. The couple swears
they did not see Arnold nor Ruby. The night of
the wreck or three weeks later on New Year's Eve night,

(42:52):
and sadly, there's nothing more that the police can do
without some kind of concrete evidence that they're lying. There's
no closure in this case. There's no satisfying ending to
the story. The FBI eventually takes over the case, but
closes it in nineteen ninety nine after it could not

(43:12):
find any evidence that a crime had been committed. Local
law enforcement continues to beg to differ, insisting that there
must have been some kind of foul play. They can't
imagine that Arnold and Ruby died where their bodies were
located three months after the fateful night of partying, and
the words of Ruby's father.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
There's something much more insidious going on here. He didn't
die there. He had to die someplace else. Someone had
to come and put them back in there again to
make it look like that's where they died.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Furthermore, both the families of Arnold and Ruby think the
police might know a little bit more than they've reported
to the public. At a conference on March nineteenth, the
families inquire of any photographs were taken on the morning
of the accident. Young Strum and his men swear that
they did their due diligence and took many photos, but

(44:15):
there was an error that rendered the negatives useless. The
families claimed the police failed to investigate in the first
place and are making excuses just to cover their asses.
Ruby's sisters claims Native Americans are often overlooked and their
concerns are often set aside. Arnold and supports this argument

(44:36):
and claims when a Native American is charged with something,
it's pursued heavily. However, when a Native American is a victim,
it's not pursued with the same perseverance. At an ensuing
news conference, it's announced that there was another reported sighting,
this time of both Arnold and Ruby, shortly after the

(44:59):
accident took Witnesses claim that Arnold and Ruby hopped into
another vehicle heading east en route to eighty one.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
One.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
More sighting comes in, this one from January twentieth, claiming
Ruby was seen somewhere in Wagner. In November, police make
another announcement evidence from the procedures but not the bodies
are sent to a new Mexico lab for more thorough testing,

(45:29):
and their results are a stark difference from those after
the bodies were found. While these tests also suggest that
death due to elemental exposure and drowning, they do not
rule out several other potential causes of death, such as
foul play. To this day, no one knows why Arnold

(45:50):
and Ruby left Tracy alone in their car, where they went,
or what happened next. But the police and most of
the community believe someone out there knows what happened, and
they're refusing to step out of the darkness.