Welcome back to the Pathway Chile. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm
Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. May twelfth, two thousand,
the South Pole, Antarctica. While working at the Almunston Scott South Pole
Station, thirty two year old Australian astrophysicist Rodney Marx becomes seriously ill before he
dies. Rodney's death is initially assumed to be natural causes, but when his
body is transported to New Zealand months later, an autopsy reveals that he died
from acute methanol poisoning. The New Zealand police attempt to launch an investigation,
but run into jurisdictional issues and Rodney's American based employers proved to be uncooperative.
A coroner's inquest fails to turn up any conclusive evidence to support Rodney's death being
a homicide, suicide, or accidental, so there's still no answers about how
he was poisoned. After that, the path went chilly. So this week,
for the very first time ever, we're going to be covering an unsolved
mystery which took place in Antarctica. The Unexplained two thousand deaths of Rodney Marx.
Today's victim was an astrophysicist from Australia who was assigned to a year long
stint working at a scientific research station in the South Pole. But after falling
ill one day, Rodney's condition gradually worsened until he died around thirty six hours
later. The freezing weather conditions made it impossible to fly Rodney's body back to
the mainland for nearly six months, and it was only then that an autopsy
revealed that his cause of death was methanol poisoning. But by this point,
the forty nine other people who worked at the research station alongside Rodney had all
returned home and gone their separate ways. Since the New Zealand Police had handled
the autopsy, they wanted to conduct a full scale investigation into Rodney's death.
But we're talking about an Australian citizen who died in Antarctica at a station controlled
by an independent agency of the United States government. Since this sort of situation
was pretty much unprecedented, you could only imagine the massive red tape and jurisdictional
issues. The media would refer to this story as the first South Pole murder,
but without a thorough investigation, it was impossible to determine if Rodney's death
was actually a murder, or if it could have been suicide or a tragic
accident, or even a prank gone horribly wrong. Rodney was known for being
heavy drinker, which provides the most logical explanation for how he could have ingested
the methanol, but whether it was because someone attempted to intentionally poison him is
still unclear. It's a pretty baffling mystery which has a number of potential theories
that we're going to explore. And despite the Antarctica setting, I solemnly swear
that we will not fall into the trap of making a bunch of bad Trail
went Cold or pathwent Chili puns. Oh domain promises. We can't keep Robin.
That's not fair to us. Okay, So I have a question,
what kind of research lab is he at? Uh, Well, discuss it
momentarily. But it's more of an astrophysical research lab where they want to look
at stuff that's in the sky and stuff that's taking place, and that's why
they go all the way to the South Pole. So this has nothing to
do with like industrial or mechanical research, right, which would explain why things
like window washer fluid or anti freeze or those kinds of things would be present
in a setting like that, which also can lead to methanol poisoning. Well,
he did have methanol there, that there are some substances that theoretically could
have been used to poison him. But whether it was like intentional murder or
he ingested it accidentally, we still don't know. But I know that when
I sent the script to Jules before we recorded. A lot of the time
she isn't familiar with the cases we cover beforehand. But this one, you
said you were obsessed with this case, right. I really and truly am
obsessed with this case because there's so little information and you're left to connect the
dots. I know which way I follow, but I don't want to say
it yet because I want Ashley to draw her own conclusions. But it is
just one of the most frustrating cases that have ever come across. It is
like the plot of a horror movie. You're at this facility in Antarctica and
there's literally nobody there that can help you with this point in time. You
can't get an autopsy right away. You can have a proper investigation. There
could have been a killer on the loose and they could have all been goners
if it was a horror movie. But this was real life. Robin's going
to tell you later on in the episode some crazy stories of things that have
gone down at research facilities like this, including one doctor that does her own
surgery on herself. Oh my gosh. It does seem really interesting, though.
You have this place where people are going to do research, but there's
so many mixed facets there. There's international researchers from all over the world there.
Like you said, it's missing what you see in a typical city,
like I'm assuming there's not, you know, the law enforcement, the legal
system and those kinds of things. And you're waiting months to get that man's
body back to New Zealand so that they can do an autopsy. All those
things set up this to fail from the very beginning. Like you said,
Jules, who knows who could have been doing this if it is indeed a
poisoning of this man, and what could have happened to that person, were
they still at that research lab, was anyone else hurt? I mean,
it's just a very very unsettling situation. Story begins in Antarctica in two thousand
and Our central figure is thirty two year old Rodney David Marx. Rodney was
originally born in DeLong, Australia, and while he would struggle with the mild
case of Turette syndrome, he proved to be a very bright child who started
doing crossword puzzles and using a resource at age seven. Rodney excelled in school,
as he first obtained a bachelor's degree in astronomy at the University of Melbourne
before earning a doctorate in physics at the University of New South Wales. He
sought a career in astrophysics and was particularly fascinated by the South Pole, which
he wrote his thesis on. Rodney considered it to be a great location for
astrophysical observation, and he traveled there on a two week radio astronomy research stint
in nineteen ninety four. Three years later, Rodney decided to return to the
South Pole for what would be a full one year long research stint as he
was assigned by the University of Time Chicago Centro for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica aka
KARA to work on their South Pole Infrared Explorer Project. The project took place
at the Ammonston Scott South Pole Station, a scientific research center located at the
southernmost point of the world, which is named after Roald Amonston and Robert F.
Scott, the first two explorers to ever reach the South Pole. The
station is run by the National Science Foundation aka the NSF, an independent agency
funded by the United States government. The NSF are responsible for all American scientific
activity in Antarctica, and back then they often subcontracted a lot of this work
to the Polar Services division of the Raytheon Technologies Corporation. Rodney was stationed there
from November nineteen ninety seven until November nineteen ninety eight and enjoyed the experience so
much that he decided to sign up for another year long stint on cars Antarctic
Submillimeter Telescope and Research Observatory Project. It would last from November nineteen ninety nine
until November two thousand and consist of such tasks as measuring ozone in the atmosphere
and capturing sub atomic particles and neutrinos from space. Rodney would work as the
project's winter over scientist, and one of his main responsibilities was coordinating experiments and
collecting data by operating the submillimeter telescope to observe radiation from gas clouds around the
star forming regions in space. Okay, so clearly this guy's brilliant because half
that stuff I couldn't understand, right, But it's really interesting because he has
this affinity for the South Pole. And this is not the first time that
he has said, I'm going to sacrifice everything I'm doing kind of mainland and
where I live and work and operate. I'm going to drop everything and go
for these week long, the becoming year long assignments to really pursue my love
of research and to be an explorer and to discover new things. And so
for this trip, which is his last trip to Antarctica. He dies halfway
through that year. And it makes me to stop and think, like,
you have someone who is so passionate, who was moving so many barriers and
trying to make scientific breakthroughs that very few people were probably specializing in and exploring,
and then he ends up debt. It's just so sad as he's pursuing
something he loves so much, his life's taken away from him. Yeah,
you pretty much have to be a tough cookie to spend an entire year in
Antarctica. It's a very arduous task, but it says a lot about Rodney
that he does at once and then automatically says, sign me up again.
I can't wait to do this all over. So he must have been really
passionate about what he was doing and really kind of liked the solitude of being
in this spot where you're thousands of miles from civilization with a select handful of
people. But I think he just loved that environment. So the Edmondson Scott
Station was situated at a location which had six consecutive summer months of non stop
daylight followed by six consecutive winter months of non stop darkness. A crew of
two hundred and fifty people would work at the station during the summer season before
returning home, while a crew of fifty scientists, technicians, construction crew and
other personnel remained there during the winter season. Rodney was one of the fifty
who volunteered to stay all year round, and shortly after he arrived, he
became romantically involved with a thirty three year old maintenance specialist named Sonya Walter.
The couple hitted off almost immediately, and even performed together in a heavy metal
band called Fanny Pack and the Big Nancy Boys. While Sonia was only supposed
to work at the station during the summer months, she volunteered to extend or
stay there so she could remain with Rodney during his entire year long stint.
They also decided to get engaged and planned to marry each other once they returned
to the mainland. He literally goes to Antarctica and falls in love with someone
so quickly that every part of who he is performing in the epic Fanni Pack
Band and the Big Nancy Boys, and then also not just becoming romantically involved,
but you get engaged and you have plans to get married right after this
year long stint here in Antarctica together. In my head, the first thing
when you said he's getting romantically involved, I said, oh, this is
bad. It's going to be a breakup. She's going to tell someone she
feels threatened by him, and they go after him. But they're not in
a bad place. They're actually newly into each other, which very rarely is
when the problems begin in a relationship, and they have big plans when they
get home. So in my gut. I'm thinking, how joyful when typically
in investigations it is someone intimately involved with you. So tell me, do
we know more about this relationship or what Sonya may or may not have known
or had to do with Rodney's death. Sonia is someone who has become very
like tight lipped about the whole experience. She doesn't like to give interviews about
it. But at no point has she ever been considered a suspect or is
there any indication that this engagement had any connection to his death. But it
is pretty sad that they never made it to the mainland and got married,
because what a story that would be to tell for your lives, Like how
many couples are you going to know who met and got engaged. While they
were living together in Antarctica, a lot of Rodney's work took place inside the
station's remote observatory, which required him to make a daily one kilometer commute in
the freezing temperatures between the observatory and the main base. On May eleventh,
while walking towards the base, Rodney started feeling ill, and over the next
twenty four hours his condition would keep worsening. While eating dinner in the galley,
was Sonia that night. Rodney told her that he wasn't feeling well and
was having trouble seeing clearly, so he went to bed early. At five
point thirty am on the morning of May twelfth, Rodney woke up with a
burning sensation in the pit of his stomach and started vomiting blood. Over the
course of the day, he would make three visits to the base's medical facility
and was checked out by the physician, doctor Robert Thompson. Rodney had a
reputation around the base for being a bit of a binge drinker and would sometimes
drink to mask the symptoms of his Tourette syndrome, so doctor Thompson initially wondered
if he was suffering from the effects of alcohol withdrawal, or perhaps even an
anxiety attack. Prior to his deployment to the South Pole, Rodney had been
required to complete a number of rigorous medical and psychological exams, and he easily
passed without any noticeable issues. By the time Rodney made a second visit to
doctor Thompson, he said he had trouble moving due to pains in his joints
and muscles, and had to wear sunglasses to protect his eyes. So he
was injected with a sedative. Since Thompson could not figure out what was wrong
with Rodney, he hoped to seek outside medical advice by using a satellite phone,
but they would usually view photo signal for a large portion of the day.
The sedative only calmed down Rodney for a short time, and it wasn't
long before he started hyperventilating and returned to the medical facility with Sonya at his
side. This time, doctor Thompson injected Rodney with a powerful antipsychotic called hall
Doll, but Rodney soon started losing consciousness and going into cardiac arrest before his
heart stopped. The trauma team is summoned to assist him, but when all
attempts to resuscitate Rodney failed, he was officially pronounced dead at six forty five
PM. It's sad because it's almost as if people are making assumptions about Rodney
given the fact that one he does have turettes, which is often coupled with
things like OCD and high rates of anxiety and depression, and so because they
know him as having his own self medicating tools, when he's actually experiencing something
that's scaring him, you can tell that he's overwhelmed, and he doesn't feel
good, and these are symptoms he doesn't normally feel. His joints ache,
he can't keep his eyes open without sunglasses on because he's incredibly sensitive to the
light. His stomach's killing him. He's throwing up blood. To me,
he knows deep down inside something's wrong. You can tell Sonya's very concerned,
even though she knows his normal tools and coping mechanisms, and they start to
kind of calm him. I'm wondering in certain points, is that medicine also
not helping his heart stay strong? Is it leading or exacerbating the methanol poisoning
and ultimately speeding up his death. It's worrisome to me that because we didn't
know he might have ingested this poison at some point that down the road or
looking back, you don't say like, oh, my goodness, could our
medicines that we put in to try to help him also have exacerbated the issue.
I think doctor Thompson basically doing triage because he knows there's something affecting Rodney,
but he can't in point what it is. So I think that you're
taking a calculated risk at that point in time going, I don't know what
it is that is causing these symptoms, and there is a potential that the
medicine that I'm giving him could worsen these symptoms or even bring upon his death.
But doing nothing isn't an option type of a situation. So Rodney's death
took everyone at the base by complete shock, and it soon became apparent that
it would be impossible to transport his body back to the mainland for months.
During the South Pole's winter season, the bad weather is incredibly severe and temperatures
could dip below minus eighty degrees celsius. While it was possible for planes to
fly over the area and air drop supplies if necessary, landing was out of
the question as the temperatures could cause a plane's hydraulic fluids to freeze within minutes
of touching down. So Rodney's co workers decided to build a wooden casket and
buried him at a temporary grave outside the base, as the coal would help
preserve his body until it could be picked up. In the meantime. Doctor
Thompson told the other person at the base that Rodney's death was a result of
unknown but natural causes, possibly due to a heart attack or aneurysm, and
the National Science Foundation would issue a formal statement which pretty much stated the same
thing. The official report read quote there is no evidence to point to homicide,
accidental poisoning, environmental toxicity, or infection end quote. Well, by
the end of October, the summer season was finally beginning, so it was
now safe enough for a plane to land at the station and pick up Rodney's
body. It would be flown to christ Church, New Zealand, the official
base for American activities in Antarctica, and both the United States and Australia would
consent to a coroner's inquest being held there. However, shortly after an autopsy
was performed, a shocking announcement was made. Rodney's exact cause of death was
acute methanol poisoning. So you know that the people that are at the base
and at this research lab, they hear the fact that this is not this
is not just cardiac arrest, is not just his death may be due to
an aneurysm or the result of, you know, something that's unknown. Naturally,
there's a cute methanol poisoning, and so immediately everyone's going what happened with
who where could this have occurred? Here on this in this research lab.
Is the person still here that did this to him? It is wild to
think as a family that your loved one again is pursuing his dream up in
Antarctica. He's fallen in love and I'm sure communicated that when he gets home
he's going to build a life with his new fiance, and all of a
sudden he passes away. His body is just buried outside with this you know,
makeshift coffin because it's so cold, his body's going to stay intact and
then good as it was, because if his autopsy had never been able to
be performed, he would have passed away with no one ever questioning were there
something? Was there something devious that or something that was criminal that actually happened
to him. One of this sas there's been is that even if there was
suspicion that foul play had taken place, that the National Science Foundation would not
want to announce that for the other personnel station at the base, because they
think, oh my god, if it's been a homicide, there's a murderer
and we're trapped here with them and we can't do anything. So I wonder,
like even if they suspected that Rodney was a victim of foul play,
they were thinking themselves, well, there's nothing we can really do about it,
so let's not tell the rest of the staff until after he gets back
to the mainland. And I'd love to know their security protocol because it is
this very remote, fifty person team that's been volunteered to stay up there in
months where it is so cold a plane can't even come in and land to
pick up a deceased body. So if you're talking about a potential homicide in
that lab, they did not have the qualified medical care that they needed for
an emergency situation like his. They didn't necessarily have a criminal investigations team or
anything that's there, and so those people so would be months out from being
able to be flown in into help, so it's very overwhelming. Generally,
only a small amount of methanol can prove fatal, and it turned out that
around one hundred and fifty millilters was found in Rodney's bloodstream, so it seemed
likely that he had somehow consumed or ingested it. The base had a large
supply of methanol, and Rodney used it to clean the telescopes, but as
far as anyone knew, he had not done so since January, and all
the bottles of methanol were clearly marked and kept inside a lock cabinet. Curiously,
a pair of needle marks were found on Rodney's right arm, even though
he was right handed. While trace amounts of alcohol were found in Rodney's system,
there was no sign of illegal drugs. In his official report, doctor
Thompson mcclaid that while he was treating Rodney, he drew blood from his right
arm and noticed that these needle marks were already there. Rodney apparently told him
that he had previous attempts at intervenous drug use, and did so at a
party he attended in christ Church shortly before arriving at the South Pole. However,
Rodney maintained that most of the other incidents involving intravenous drugs occurred in the
distant past. Doctor Thompson also said that when he asked Rodney about the last
time he drank alcohol, Rodney said he hadn't done so in nearly two days.
Well, yeah, here's another thing. So when they see that intravenous
mark, they see these needle marks in his arm the alarm bells were likely
going off saying did someone actually inject him with some type of methanol or methanol
compound? Right? And the reality is is, thank goodness, the doctor
had actually addressed some of those things with Rodney. Hey, Rodney, let
me take kind of the alcohol excuse off the books. When's the last time
you drank several days ago? Okay, what are these needle marks on your
arm? Those are from a party and I was being, you know,
irresponsible, and this is what I was doing. I was experimenting. But
yeah, he could explain away those marks. It seems if he has a
cute methanol poisoning, that there's a large amount of methanol that was consumed,
not this accidental kind of inhalation of it, that it was likely put into
a drink. Like the idea that is it anti freeze actually pretty sweet and
doesn't actually indicate that it's a chemical when you consume it in a beverage.
I think that it's smells it is sweet. But I think in modern times
they've changed that somehow because pets were dying from ingestion of anti freeze. But
I think it used to be like almonds or something, Yeah, like a
nutty kind of sweet flavor. So there were certain drinks you could put it
in and people couldn't tell it masked, right, mass that flavor of chemicals.
But yeah, oh my goodness, Yeah, I need to know who
was he with in those times beforehand. Is it even possible that by cleaning
these telescopes he could have actually ingested it? It seems purposeful. That's a
frustrating thing, is that we're not going to get too much information about Rodney's
exact whereabouts during that time period he may have been poisoned. As we're going
to talk about that speak one of the side effects of a delayed investigation that
no one was considering it as a homicide and here we are months later.
So trying to track Rodney's exact movements prior to his death would be nearly impossible.
And even though it seems purposeful, when you've got all of these individuals
there and nobody's questioned them, especially right away, and people aren't volunteering to
provide information. They're working for Raytheon. Is that what it is? Robin?
Yeah, some of these people, Yeah, you're working for big corporations.
They might want to just put a cap on it and not have any
bad publicity, so being tied to a murder could be potentially bad for them.
So everybody is not really complying with what the Marx family wants, and
that's to share information so they can find out what happened to Rodney. And
it's just infuriating because we don't know from any of the information that we have
that he was exhibiting some signs of having like a mental health crisis or being
suicidal. And it looks so purposeful, like you just said, Ashley,
like somebody did this to him or he did this to himself. But I'm
more inclined to believe that somebody did this to him, but we've just got
no evidence to release support that either. So following the autopsy, Rodney's body
was returned to Australia so his family could finally give him a proper burial,
but they began to suspect that Rodney might have been the victim of foul play.
The investigation would be handled by the New Zealand Police and assigned to Detective
Senior Sergeant Grant Wormald. However, the problem was that this was an unprecedented
situation and there was a lot of confusion about who had official jurisdiction. In
nineteen sixty one, the Antarctic Tree System was entered into force after it was
signed and ratified by fifty three countries who all had an interest in setting up
scientific research stations on the continent. Each of these countries could make territorial claims
if they desire, and the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station happened to be located
within the Ross Dependency Region, which is officially claimed by New Zealand when the
treaty was signed. However, the United States government does not recognize New Zealand's
claim to territorial sovereignty or the application of New Zealand law to American citizens who
would have been operating in Antarctica. In their eyes, workers accused of a
serious crime at a research station were subject to the laws and jurisdiction of their
home country, so while questioning and investigations involving American citizens attached to the case
would have to be performed by the American authorities. And even though Rodney Marx
was an Australian citizen, the majority of the personnel occupying the Amundson Scott Station
at the time of Rodney's death were American. So the problem here right,
Like you're saying, these are international forces that are coming together for this research
lab, and in order to do so, they're creating treaties and saying,
look, there are obviously multiple interests that are represented here. And when we
explore kind of how we're going to handle different situations, one of the things
they discuss is that in criminal cases, the home country is going to handle
their own citizens. And unfortunately, when you have a man from Australia and
going, you know, his body's being transported back to New Zealand, and
you have this kind of international investigation that's delayed and late, to what extent
and what interest does the American government have of actually assisting in this investigation and
how much how many resources are they actually going to give to this when it's
been so delayed. There isn't a lot of evidence, and we're not very
clear as to what type of crimes actually occurred. I just don't see it
being one of the priority cases that you're going to see the American government chasing
on an international level, and added that there are no real suspects because if
someone poisoned Rodney, how do you determine who it was, and the American
government could just say, well, none of the perks we know of her
suspects, so why should we have to question them. We have no evidence
that they committed a crime. Ll like, the best they can do is
say, hey, guys, did you have anything to do with the poisoning
death of Rodney? And if they say no, and there's no eyewitnesses,
there's no information, there's no forensic evidence, how would you proceed. The
investigation was also hampered by the fact that Rodney's body had to remain at the
station for six months before an autopsy could be performed, and by that point,
the other forty nine workers from the base had already gone their separate ways
and returned to their respective homes. Since it was initially announced that Rodney's death
was a result of natural causes, his office and sleeping quarters were not preserved
for a potential homicide investigation and continued to be used, and while some of
his personal items were collected and returned to his family, other items were just
thrown away. Over the course of the next six years, the investigation into
Rodney's death would be conducted in secrecy until a coronial inquest was held in New
Zealand in two thousand and six. After a series of hearings, the inquest
was indefinitely adjourned and the case started receiving attention in the media. In September
two thousand and eight, a written report from the inquest was released publicly for
the first time, which confirmed that Rodney had died as a result of acute
methanol poisoning. However, the coroner could not find any evidence to conclusively determine
if Rodney's death was a homicide, suicide, or an accident. Well,
you're talking about six and eight years later. I mean. The problem is
is that, like we talk about with all of our cases, that original
investigation and making sure that you capture everything possible from the beginning is what you
have to do in a criminal case. And if you don't do that at
the moment of the crime, then you don't have the ability to rewind time
and go back. In this case, it's near impossible. There was no
investigative team showing up to say, hey, we don't know what happened,
but let's treat this as a homicide, and we can always declare a suicide
and accident or a natural death. Later that wasn't possible. Here. You
had a doctor who didn't know what was happening, was trying to get outside
help and couldn't get through. You have a landlocked I mean this kind of
locked in research lab where only fifty people are operating there waiting for months to
come where external people can come in to their lab. And so, yeah,
of course they went into his room and said, these are personal effects
his family might want. Let's save them. Let's clean the rest of this
stuff out because he's deceased and we need to make sure we're moving forward trying
to get his body home. And so what was not done cannot be fixed,
especially when you're looking at the case months and then years, almost a
decade later. I understand why they said, we really have to suspend this,
like, I don't know where you would proceed from here. So the
inquest report made note of the lack of cooperation from both the National Science Foundation
and their contractor, the Raytheon Technologies Corporation, and Detective Senior Sergeant Wormald showed
no hesitation about publicly expressing his frustration with them. According to Wormald, the
US Department of Justice was unable to perform official interviews with any of the workers
from the Mundsen Scott station because the coronial inquest was considered a quote unquote informal
inquiry, so the NSF and Raytheon had jurisdiction. The NSF told the New
Zealand Police that they had already performed their own internal investigation and concluded that Rodney's
death was the result of natural causes, but when Wormwoldt asked for an official
report of this investigation, he was informed that no such report existed. The
NSF also failed to provide a list of the forty nine other employees who had
been assigned to the base at the time of Rodney's death, and the New
Zealand Police actually had to look up their names on the Internet. The NSF
did provide consent for the police to mail out questionnaires to these employees, on
the condition that they could screen the questions beforehand, and they also demanded that
the employees be made aware that the questionnaires were strictly voluntary well after they were
sent out, but the police only received a response from thirteen of the forty
nine employees. Hey not a better return rate for mailout surveys now? Yes,
jeez? Louise. Okay, so I'm twofold on this. There's kind
of two different perspectives here. You've got to remember that really, in their
gut and in their heart, there was no part of this team that was
actually located in Antarctica that thought there had been something nefarious going on. And
so when you talk about what was done in the moment, I feel like
they operate in a way of just genuinely preparing a body to be delivered back
to a family after the unnatural death. And so you're asking the National Science
Foundation to then react to a quote potential criminal act, not knowing if it's
possible Rodney had taken the methanol himself or what had happened. And so they're
doing what any other corporation's going to do. That's asking people to do things
like give up their life and comfortson research opportunities, and they want people to
feel safe. This is a pr nightmare for them. It's also something where
they aren't truly aware of where we went wrong, what could have happened.
Are we in some way responsible? So in one way, I do understand
why there's kind of this resistance or kind of fear to actively participate and at
least trying to do what's legally best for the company, because I think they're
equally as confused as everyone listening to it right now, like what happened.
We don't know what happened. So to say, oh, we're just going
to sit here and say listen, there's been a homicide and here's what we're
going to do. We're going to try to go back in time and figure
about what happened. I just don't know how they were going to make progress.
So I think that might have been this pr stunt to say, legally,
we're going to protect ourselves and if you can find information, that would
be great. If you can't, I don't know what to tell you.
It's really scary that they didn't know who was on their own base and in
their own research lab, because then it makes me feel like no one's safe
there. If I didn't come home, does NSF not know where I was
located? So those things make me really frustrated for everyone who was on that
base. If you're concerned about what happened to Rodney or not concerned about what
happened to Rodney, that's not okay ethically, But I understand that kind of
legal mindset, but it almost seems like they weren't concerned about anybody who was
located in that research lab. I love listening to you talk about institutions and
corporations. I knew this part would be a really good Ashley part, because
you've always got really great insights as far as that goes, because of your
expertise and your own personal experience. And it looks like here that they're caring
more about protecting the corporation or the foundation rather than protecting the individuals that are
working for it. Yeah. Absolutely, I think they're saying, prove it
to me, you show me what happened, and then we'll open ourselves up
right until you can prove this as a homicide, and that we need to
react to that. We're going to try to pretend like it was not a
homicide or that we're not highly alarmed, so that no one looking into our
program and the many opportunities we need fulfilled is going to run in a different
direction. Yeah. I think that if this has been a crime, that
it was committed on American soil, and the NSF pretty much told the American
law enforcement that, Yet we did our own internal investigation. We don't have
any documentation, but just take our word for it. It probably wouldn't fly.
But because they're dealing with a police in an entirely different continent in New
Zealand, they was really nothing the New Zealand Police could do. Wormold was
most frustrated by his inability to track down the base physician doctor Robert Thompson.
Thompson possessed a machine called an ecticm, a device which can measure a patient's
blood chemistry, but it was never used on Rodney before or after his death.
Thompson's story was that the ectaicem's lithium battery had died, which meant that
the machine had to be recalibrated every time it was turned on, a process
which took between eight to ten hours. Thompson never made any attempt to fix
it, but if the ectaicem had been functional and used on Rodney when he
first became ill, it might have detected the methanol poisoning and potentially saved his
life. Unfortunately, since doctor Thompson could not be found, he was never
formally questioned by the New Zealand Police or did not provide any testimony at the
inquest. It was also reported that Wormwold's numerous inquiries created diplomatic heat between the
United States and New Zealand. At one point, the US State Department reportedly
contacted New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to question why Wormwold had so much perseverance
on this case. When asked for an opinion about Rodney's death, worm Old
stated, quote, in my view, it's most likely marx ingested the methodol
unknowingly end quote. Here's the problems here is that he goes in at five
point thirty in the morning, and I believe it's six forty five at night
when he passes away after multiple interventions trying to offer him a sedative and different
kinds of things to calm his body and his nerves. But this machine that
would take eight to ten hours. I mean, like, yes, he
had time to use it, but you have to be keyed off that you
need to use it. So remember, he was under the impression that he's
talking to this guy who's sick, like almost presenting with a virus flu situation
where his body's aching so bad, he's throwing up his mom eyes are really
sensitive, like he's having a migraine or a panic attack or these kinds of
things. So when a doctor thinks they know what's happening, they're going to
react in a way that treats what they think is happening. Remember, he
thinks he's either having withdraws from alcohol or he thinks that he is having a
panic attack, And although he's presenting signs that he's also sick, it doesn't
really like key off that we're going to have a murder on in this lab,
that we're going to have somebody who's ingested poison, Because if I had
ingested poison, like the hope is, oh, man, I'm at this
chemical lab and this poison I ingested it. I need help, And you
could articulate that he unknowingly likely ingested this, doesn't understand himself what's going on,
and the doctor doesn't assume he needs to do this blood work up on
him. So could he have charged this machine? Absolutely? Did he know
he needed to charge the machine? Probably not, because again he's kind of
defaulting too. Ah, we know Rodney has problems. He struggles with Turett's
at a very high end intellectual level, and so in order to cope with
that and present like his peers in the research lab. He drinks a lot,
and he also struggled with anxiety and depression, likely related to Tourette's,
and so he's self medicating. I don't think that this doctor had a reason
to have his interest peaked towards a potential homicide. And again, I think
that's why everyone said it's fine that we have to wait months to get somebody
here, because this is a natural death that occurred in a tragic way.
No part of him thought, oh, maybe there's methanol poisoning. That's just
not a common reaction or outcome that I think he was trained to look for.
I think the criticism is if he had tried to charge the machine at
that point after Ronnie got sick, it probably would have been too late to
save his life. I think they were just criticizing him because I guess it
was his job to perform maintenance on it and then probably like recalibrate it before
Rodney gets sick. But he just kind of left it to the side,
and I'm not sure if he would have suspected it was poisoning, but have
been useful at measuring Rodney's blood chemistry and probably would have provided further insight into
what happened to him, but unfortunately it just wasn't available at that time,
And it seems kind of preposterous to me, like, I'm sure you probably
both thought the same thing. The coronial inquest said, there's no evidence of
accident, suicide or murder, but it seems pretty unlikely that if you were
going to end your own life and then you decided, WHOA, I don't
want to do this, but you'd ingested methanol in order to do so,
you would tell the doctor what you'd taken so that it could be remedied.
You wouldn't try to end your own life take it, decide that you want
to live, and then not disclose the steps that you had taken and the
substance you ingested, because I'm sure as a scientist he knows that there is
likely a remedy, but you need to know what you're dealing with, oh
exactly. And if he had accidentally inst and went, oh my god,
I'm sick, Oh my gosh, maybe it was the method all that I
was cleaning stuff with, he also would have articulated that. So whether it
was intentional or accidental ingestion, if it was his will, that that was
what happened, he would have articulated that when he's begging for help at the
doctor's. It does lend itself to say, at the level, at an
acute level, that took his life. Who did this to him? I
mean, it really does eliminate anything but someone targeting him or even just being
I mean, you've seen where poisonings aren't always directed towards somebody. It's just
someone who wants to take a life and they poison whatever's convenient for them.
But it feels like this would be with only fifty people at that lab,
that someone wanted Rodney gone, maybe someone competing for a job, maybe somebody
who felt threatened by him, maybe someone who was interested in the fiance.
Weren't there rumors about that Robin that there was somebody who was into his fiance
and that there could have been some love rival. Well, I know that's
been proposed as a potential theory, but they haven't really pointed at anyone in
particular. Like, I mean, maybe that did happen, but because they
have spoken to so few of the people who were stationed there that maybe that
information has not gotten out. But it's certainly possible because if someone was jealous
and hated the idea of having to spend an entire winter for with Rodney and
Sonya while they were expressing their love to each other. I could see someone
having a motive to poison him, but they've just never found anyone who showed
like any open interest towards her. And in a situation like you know,
six months of extreme light and then six months of dark, people will do
things that are outside of the norm, and that's why they have to do.
Like you know, we mentioned the heavy psychological screenings before going into an
environment such as this, so as we talked about. The investigation did not
turn up any evidence that Rodney was suicidal, as he enjoyed his work,
had no financial problems, and of course he had recently fallen in love and
gotten engage to Sonia Walter. Furthermore, the fact that Rodney kept visiting the
base's medical facility when he became ill seemed to dismiss the possibility that he had
any intention of taking his own life. But on the other hand, since
Rodney was a very well liked person at the base, the investigation failed to
turn up any potential suspects who might have had a motive to intentionally poison him
by slipping methanol into one of his drinks. However, given Rodney's reputation as
a binge drinker, the possibility was also explored that he could have drank some
methanol for recreational use. Another theory was that he could have accidentally mixed it
up with an alcoholic beverage, as methanol has a similar taste to vodka.
Indeed, Rodney was known for having a messy workspace, as nearly twenty empty
bottles of both alcohol and lab agents were found on top of his desk after
his death. Okay, but remember he was pretty open with the fact that,
yes, I've engaged in recreational drugs. I shot up in a christ
church over in New Zealand. I also drink, but it was been two
days since I drank. If he is scared of his health and he thinks
something could have happened to him, like Jules said, he's going to share
that information. Hey, listen, I'm working with this chemical and I had
this drink, and what if this happened. I just don't think that if
he had any knowledge or any intent, like people drink mouthwashed to get drunk,
right or they'll consume things that actually aren't beverages to get that high.
And if that's something he was doing, he had never been ashamed to tell
the truth to the doctor before, and he was being transparent in the moment
with things that were less than flattering. So why would he hide that.
I'm about to tell you a way that this could happen that wouldn't involve Rodney
failing to disclose that. Well, tell me, okay. So yet another
interesting theory was provided by Harry Maher, who worked as the Health and Safety
office for the Polar Services and was one of the few NSF employees who was
willing to testify at the inquest. According to mahar Rodney had purchased what he
described as an unusual shaped bottle of liquor from New Zealand, which had a
picture of a shrimp on the label, as well as writing which may have
been Portuguese. Some of the employees who answered the New Zealand's police questionnaires confirmed
having seen this bottle of liquor, and it was apparently among the empty bottles
found on Rodney's desk following his death. When Men's Journal published an extensive article
about this case in two thousand and nine, an anonymous co worker from the
base sent them an email proposing a potential scenario where Rodney unknowingly purchased some tainted
liquor which fatally poisoned him. However, since the bottle was likely thrown out
before it could be tested, the theory was nothing more than speculation. Even
though the New Zealand Police were unable to uncover any conclusive answers about Rodney's death,
the Marx family still publicly thanked them for their efforts. They did not
believe that the police were ut fault and were disappointed, but neither the NSF
or Raytheon made any attempt to contact them. The family suspected that Rodney's case
was just not a high priority for the American authorities since he was an Australian
citizen. Rodney's father, Paul Marx, had expressed his skepticism about receiving any
closure, stating quote, after so long, it's probably impossible to ever know
what happened or if he died by sinister means or accident. That's something we
have to live with end quote. The Ammonson Scott South Pole Station erected a
memorial plaque for Rodney and an eight thousand, five hundred foot square plaque for
Rodney and an eighty five hundred foot mountain in Antarctica's Worster Range would be named
mount Marks in his honor. But after twenty years, the actual circumstances of
how Rodney Barks died are still unknown, so I guess you could say the
path went chilling. Bless their hearts. I feel so sorry for the family
who's saying we were getting news that our son was not just getting these opportunities
of a lifetime and is making us so proud by being this premier researcher,
and you know he is. He's being brave and being one of fifty people
who says, I'll stay in Antarctica for another year. I'm hanging out here
all year with fifty people. How elite and magical. And then he's writing
home and saying, it's not just my career, guys, this is also
my life. I fell in love, I'm coming home, I'm getting married.
So they were anticipating a son and daughter in law coming home from that
trip and celebrating career achievements, the growth of a new love and family,
and then all of a sudden their son dies, which is tragic enough,
but they're like everybody else in this scene that as the months unfold and then
they get his body home, they're thinking, our Sun died to natural causes.
We get to have this burial for him and put him to rest.
Tragic loss of a natural death. And then you put in the component that
it's likely a homicide or a poisoning. It's overwhelming to then shift the grief
process and restart the narrative trying to grieve a murder of your son, whether
it is tainted liquor like some people have purported, or whether it's an intentional
murder. It's almost reminding me of like a they're saying the tailan all murders
or something where someone just went in, took a bottle of liquor, poisoned
it, and stuck it back on a shelf, is what one of the
theories is. I feel like it's more probable that he was targeted because did
he not share any of that liquor with someone else? Did he not consume
any of that liquor before he started to get sick? Like was this not
something he had drank prior? Because he had been there for six months.
So at that point, you're saying he saved that shrimp labeled liquor for months
before he tapped into it, and that first time he enjoyed it, did
he get sick? It seems so sketchy. That's the thing is, we
just don't know when he first tried it. Because none of the witnesses we
were interviewed, we're able to confirm that. I would be really interested who
the anonymous coworker was, who sent the email, who posited this theory.
It makes me wonder why you wanted to remain anonymous, Like maybe he felt
that it would risk his career if he speaked out about about anything involving the
NSF or rathion or something. I don't think he felt that his life would
be threatened, but I'm sure he felt his employees were not appreciate him providing
information to the press. That's one side of the coin. The other side
is exactly he might have been the one who did it, and he's trying
to like, you know, put a red airring out there, some misdirection,
Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah, Or what if he's the one
who actually poisoned the liquor and he's like hey, hand hint, there could
have been some poisoned liquor there. You know, he could have also been
the one to actually taint that liquor. And again, I think the person
who anonymously sends that unfortunately knows if they're trying to do the right thing,
that they can't go back and retest evidence. And they also aren't going to
really be able to pen anything on you if you are the person who did
it. So this episode is truly a first for the Pathway Chile, as
it's not often that you literally get to cover a cold case from one of
the coldest places on Earth. When this story started getting media coverage, it
was often referred to as possibly being the very first South Pole murder, but
technically it may not be the first recorded murder to ever take place in Antarctica.
That particular incident is alleged to have taken place in nineteen fifty nine at
the Vostok Station, a Russian research station located in Princess elizabeth Land, which
is believed to be the coldest place on Earth. The story goes a two
Russian scientists got into a heated dispute following a chess match, which led to
the loser attacking the winner with an ice axe. Different sources give different accounts
about whether or not the victim survive, so we can't vouch for the truthfulness
of the story, but apparently the incident led to the banning of chess games
at Soviet and Russian and Arctic stations weather of the case. It might also
be premature to refer to Rodney Mark's death as a murder, since that's never
been conclusively proven, But theoretically, if you wanted to kill someone and get
away with it, at Arctica could be an ideal place to commit the perfect
crime. Absolutely, especially if you were looking at these types of stations and
the labs that are being run there. They are so isolated, they are
so sparsely populated. There aren't the same types of Yes, there's going to
be security and precautions to protect the data that's there, but I don't think
you have a crime prevention and criminal response team as part of the bare bones
crew that's running there. So one of my all time favorite movies is On
Carpenter's nineteen eighty two remake of the Thing, and ever since I first watched
it, I've always been fascinated by the idea of living at an isolated research
station in Antarctica for an extended period of time, and the terrifying possibility of
having no means of escape or rescue if something goes horribly wrong. In fact,
that the Edmondson Scott South Pole Station, whenever the last flight home leaves
for the winter season, it's become an annual tradition for the crew who have
stayed behind to immediately have a marathon screening session of the original nineteen fifty one
version of The Thing, the John Carpenter remake, and the twenty eleven prequel.
Technically, everyone at the station is now in the same position as the
characters in those films, as they have no way in or out for the
next six months. So imagine being trapped there if you discover that someone had
been murdered. Yeah. I'm a hard pass. I hate horror movies.
I can handle the real thing, but I don't want to watch any horror
movies. And I also so don't want to be cold. We've had ice
and snow for a week with no sun, and I want to move back
to Florida. So I just all of that sounds like its own nightmare in
and of itself. Make sure you watch Jean Carpenter's The Thing though, even
though you don't like horror movies, because it's awesome. It's a really good
movie. It is. Yes, I'll tell you a summary later that I
read online. Okay, so I think this would be a good time to
bring an end to part one. But join us next week as we present
part two of our series about the unexplained death of Rodney Mars Robin. Do
you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
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be sure to bundle up, because cold trails and chili pass call for
warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy