Welcome back to the Pathway, Jillie, I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. December eighth, two
thousand, Dublin, Ireland. After spending a rainy evening at a staff Christmas
party, twenty two year old Trevor Deeley walks to his place of employment,
the Bank of Ireland Asset Management headquarters. Trevor chats with a coworker and grabs
an umbrella, but after leaving the building and passing by nearby atm he never
arrives at his apartartment and is not heard from again. CCTV footage would show
a man dressed in black coming into contact with Trevor that night, but no
one knows if this had any connection with his disappearance, and no trace of
Trevor is ever found after that. The path went Chile. So today the
Pathway Chile will be covering what is our first case from Ireland, the two
thousand disappearance of Trevor Deey. In fact, this may be the most famous
and puzzling missing person's case in the history of that country. This is one
of those haunting disappearances in which there is existing footage of the victim's last no
movements before they seemingly vanished into thin air. Trevor Deeley was a young employee
with the Bank of Ireland Asset Management who stayed up late attending a staff Christmas
party, but shortly after three thirty am, he decided to stop by his
workplace before heading back to his apartment. However, Trevor never arrived, and
even though investigators turned up footage of him walking past a seat ECTV camera at
an ATM on his route home, what happened to him next is anyone's guess.
For over two decades, one of the biggest leads in this case was
a mysterious individual known only as the man in Black, who was seen briefly
chatting with Trevor when he stopped by his workplace. Forty minutes later, CCTV
footage captured a man in black walking past the same ATM camera almost immediately after
Trevor did, but investigators cannot be certain if this was the same man who
was previously seen chatting with Trevor, or if he had any involvement in his
disappearance. I originally covered this one on the trail went cold nearly six years
ago, but there has been a recent development in the case, so I
thought we should revisit it. On the Pathway Chile. This is one of
those cases that has so much of an eerie vibe to it that you have
Trevor who's at a Christmas party for his business and then he is saying,
Hey, I'm going to stop by work for some reason at three point thirty
and encounters a man in black, Robin, can you tell me more about
is this guy inside his employment place? Is he seen outside talking to him?
Yeah, he's seen outside the gates of the headquarters talking to Trevor before
he walks away. And then, as we're going to talk about later,
forty minutes after Trevor leaves, you see another man in black walking past the
same CCTV camera that Trevor passed by. So the wondering was this the same
man who was outside the bank and could he have been following Trevor and is
he the reason that Trevor disappeared. It's so bizarre because if it is the
same man, it's almost when you think about the timing. It's three point
thirty in the morning after a Christmas party and this man in black is talking
to him outside his place of employment. My question in the back of my
head is is it someone from work or someone who's familiar with him being at
work and comes to, let's say, talk to him or confront him,
because they also had just left the Christmas party and then they follow him where
he's going. Yeah, because that's the weird thing is that no one should
have known that Trevor was going to stop by his workplace at that hour of
the morning, because they should have automatically assumed he would just head straight home
from the party. So if that's the case, how did this man know
he was going to be there and could he have followed him or is it
just a coincidence that he happened to be there and he has no connection to
the case. Our story begins in Ireland in two thousand and Our central figure
is twenty two year old Trevor Deey. Trevor originally hails from the town of
Noss and was born to parents Michael and Anne Dealey. He is the youngest
of their four siblings and has an older brother and two sisters. Trevor now
lives in Dublin, sharing an apartment with two female flatmates and is employed at
the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland Asset Management, more commonly known as the
BIAM. He works for their IT department and by all accounts, is considered
a model employee with a strong work ethic and is well liked by everyone who
knows him. In November this year, Trevor left on vacation for a lengthy
trip to Alaska before he returned to work on Wednesday, December sixth. The
following evening, he attended a staff Christmas party, which involved traveling to multiple
locations with his coworkers. They started off by attending a reception at a club
called Copper Face Jacks, before they moved to a Hilton hotel on Charlemont Place
for the main party. After remaining there for several hours, they decided to
go to a nightclub on Leeson Street called Buck Whaley's, and of course,
Trevor and coworkers consumed a lot of alcohol throughout the course of the night.
At around three twenty five am on December eighth, Trevor left the nightclub and
initially planned to walk back to his apartment, but there was a heavy rainstorm
taking place with very high winds. Since a taxi driver's strike was taking place
in Dublin and there were no cabs available. Trevor decided to walk to his
workplace, the Bank of Ireland Asset Management headquarters at Wilton Terrace, as it
was located only a couple of minutes away. At this time of night.
The building's rear gate would have ordinarily been locked and had a chain on it,
but the security guard had removed the chain a few minutes earlier in order
to receive a delivery, so Trevor was able to unlock the gate and let
himself inside. By the time he entered the building, Trevor was completely drenched
with rain, but he logged onto his computer to send out an email before
meeting up with Carl Pender, a coworker who was working the overnight shipt.
The two of them had coffee and chatted together in the staff canteen, and
even though Carl would describe Trevor as being a bit tipsy, he did not
believe he was heavily intoxicated. Trevor's main reason for visiting the office was to
borrow one of the corporate golf umbrellas they kept lying around, which he could
carry when he completed his walk home in the rain. After grabbing the umbrella,
Trevor exited the building at four two am. Shortly thereafter, Trebor used
his mobile phone to leave a quick voicemail for a friend. This would turn
out to be the last time anyone ever heard from him. Trevor failed to
show up for work later that day, which seemed very uncharacteristic, but this
did not immediately raise any alarm bells given that it was a Friday and Trevor
had been out drinking the night before. However, and Trevor failed to show
up for work again on Monday, December of the eleventh, this caused great
concern. Nobody had made any contact with Trevor over the weekend, and all
calls to his cell phone went unanswered. When his family went to visit his
apartment, there was no answer at the door. Since Trevor's flatmates had been
out of town on holiday, it could not be confirmed if he actually made
it back to his apartment after leaving BIAM headquarters. Trevor was subsequently reported missing
to the Guardee, which, in case you're not aware, is the official
name of Ireland's police force. This became one of the most high profile missing
persons cases in the history of the country. The Daley family would perform a
relentless search for Trevor, and thousands of leaflets and missing persons posters were distributed
by the use. This is everything lines up to be just this almost catastrophic
storm for him, no pun intending because it's pouring down rain. But he's
going to say, I know there's umbrellas at work. I'm going to try
to get into work, catch my breath, get an umbrella. He sits
and has coffee with his coworker. But those back gates they just happen to
be unlocked, which let him enter from that way. Is that where he's
going to encounter this man in black before going into his workplace or is it
after he leaves his workplace? Yeah, we're gonna discuss this momentarily, but
it's before he walks into the workplace. And what's going to happen is that
Trevor goes inside and the CCTV foot it shows this guy walking out of frame
and no one knows what happens to him or if he did return by the
time Trevor left. See that's so bizarre. So this the events just line
up in a way that he really should have never been able to go through
those back rear gates or be back there, except the security guard had received
this package or a delivery. And also there's a security are sitting there.
Does he not know anything? Apparently not. I haven't heard anything more about
the guard, but I presume that they question him. And that's the thing
is that Trevor, they will confirm that he left the bank and walked a
couple of blocks, So whatever did happen to him did not happen at the
bank, So perhaps the guard's testimony is completely irrelevant. Was it typical or
characteristic for the banks to have people doing overnight shifts? I think it's because
he worked in the IT apartment, So I have to assume that they had
to watch over the servers. I mean, I have a friend like that
who had a job where she would have to go into offices and work all
night just to mind the servers. And it was one of those jobs where
most of the time you're just sitting doing nothing. All you have to do
is just watch over it in case anything goes wrong. So I'm guessing that
maybe Carl Pender might have been the only person working there at that time,
and Trevor thought, well, since my friend's there, it'll be okay for
me to grab an umbrella and I can chat with him for a while.
One of the first steps in the investigation involved check the footage from the CCTV
cameras located outside BIAM headquarters, which would turn up a very intriguing clue.
Starting at three h five am, the CCTV footage would show an unidentified man
dressed in black standing by a pillar next to the rear gates, and for
reasons unknown, he remained there for nearly half an hour. But then at
three point thirty four, after the man appeared to be receiving a quick call
on his cell phone, Trevor arrived and walked past him. At the time,
Trevor was talking on his cell phone with Carl Pender, so he never
acknowledged the man in black, but then the man immediately started following Trevor.
Now there was a separate camera overlooking a second rear gate behind the building,
which was twenty feet away from the first one. Twenty seconds after Trevor passed
the man in black, the CCTV footage from the second camera would show this
man walking ahead of Trevor before he came to a stop near the second gate,
which seemed to indicate that he passed Trevor during that brief window of time
after Trevor finished his phone call, the two men appeared to engage in a
brief conversation before Trevor unlocked the gate and walked into the building. According to
Carl Pender, Trevor never mentioned anything about his conversation with the man in black
during the time they chatted. A few minutes after Trevor went inside, the
man walked across the road out of frame and could no longer be seen when
Trevor left the building and exited through the gate at four h two. So
that kind of blows my idea that maybe this was someone from the party who
had followed him there. He had actually been at the gate prior to Trevor
coming and is almost lingering there before almost having this interaction where he wants to
get Trevor's attention or ask him something, or see where Trevor's going. Is
it possible that this person is like just trying to seek shelter in the really
bad weather, and like maybe they're hoping that somehow saw one's going to come
along and they're going to be able to catch a ride. That might be
possible because maybe that was the conversation he had with Trevor. Can I follow
you into this place and I can get shelter, But I'm sure Trevor said
no, this is a secure banking facility. I can't let strangers inside,
and that's why he walked away, and Trevor just thought, well, this
interaction is not worth mentioning to Carl. But yeah, I don't think he
was specifically targeting Trevor because he was there a half hour earlier, and there's
no way he could have predicted that Trevor would decide to stop by his workplace
at that time of night. And maybe the call he received on his cell
phone was somebody who's coming to pick him up, and then that's why he
left right around the same time as Trevor. That is possible he could have
gone to a spot where there were no cameras and was picked up out of
frame. So after Trevor left BIAM headquarters, he would be captured one more
time by CCTV cameras. At four fourteen am, CCTV footage showed Trevor passing
by an ATM at a branch of the Bank of Ireland located at the corner
of Addington Road and Baggett Street Bridge. This was approximately a fifteen minute walk
away from Trevor's apartment in Ballsbridge, but no one knows what happened to him
afterward. However, thirty seconds after Trevor disappeared out of frame, the CCTV
footage showed a man dressed in black passing by the ATM and heading him the
same direction, But since the footage was not very clear, no one could
be certain if this was the same man in black scene standing outside BIAM headquarters
over a half hour earlier. Even though a public plea was sent out for
this man to come forward, no one ever did. It's thirty seconds after
he passes by. If it is the same man, that man went across
the street and out a frame and waited for Trevor and then is getting incredibly
close on his tail when he's only fifteen minutes away from his house. It
is also possible it's not the same person. But in a pouring down rainstorm
at four fourteen in the morning, what are the chances that you have two
men all dressed in black? Trevor at the same time. It's a taxi
strike though, and it seems like they're in an area where there's lots of
pubs and bars, so it is possible. Oh yeah, definitely, like
circumstances were different, and doublin at that because of the taxi strike and how
we're going to talk about. That's just one of the many pieces of bad
luck for Trevor, because if there hadn't been a strike, he just would
have taken a cab home and none of this would have happened. The CCTV
camera at the ATM captured Trevor right after he'd crossed Baggett Street Bridge, which
overlooks the Grand Canal, so authorities looked into the possibility that Trevor could have
fallen off the bridge into the water and drowned. A thorough search was performed
of the canal, along with the other waterways connected to it, but it
turned up no trace of Trevor's body. According to the head of the GUARDIESE
sub Awquay unit, who performed a search, if Trevor had fallen into the
canal, he almost certainly would have been found, but since Trevor had already
crossed the bridge the last time he was seen on the CCTV footage. Why
would he have turned around and gone in the opposite direction. The authorities also
searched the River Dowterer, another body of water Trevor would have had to cross
on his route back to his apartment, but nothing was found there either.
In fact, the umbrella Trevor was carrying could also not be found, nor
were any of his personal items, including his mobile phone. Trevor's sister,
Michelle, had called his phone at least four times over the weekend after he
disappeared, even though her calls started going straight to voicemail on Monday, December
eleventh, Michelle seemed to recall that the phone still rang when she attempted to
reach Trevor over the weekend. This is very concerning because if he had been
let's say, he had been attacked on the street, I don't think that
he would have been able to maintain that umbrella in his hands, and I
don't think an attacker would have scooped up that umbrella to get it to go
with Trevor's body or with Trevor same thing with his cell phone. If he
was he you saw him talking on his cell phone a couple times that night.
If he was holding his phone and got into an altercation, he probably
would have dropped it and it would have stayed in that location. Those are
things that are visible. Someone would have seen them and been able to link
them back to Trevor after he had been reporting missing. But it's almost like
he either got picked up or he went home and left again. But there's
no sign of that. It's very It just doesn't allude to the fact that
this person's following him and then would attack him on the street. We don't
see anything of Trevor's do you guys think too that, like you would necessarily
see a scene from a struggle. Because this was the year two thousand,
I think that people would be more apt to scoop up a cell phone that
they found on the street because pass codes weren't what they are today, and
you'd be more likely to be able to unlock that phone and use it or
sell it. So somebody might just come across a phone on the ground and
they're not going to assume that somebody's been abducted. They're just going to think,
oh, someone dropped their phone mine. Now, yeah, that's what
I'm picking as well, and it's possible, like if Ashley's theory is true
that maybe he accepted a ride for someone, then he would have taken the
umbrella and his phone into the car with them, and whoever had them could
have disposed of them at a later time, and that explains why they're not
kind found lying on the ground somewhere. But your theory is apt as well
that it's possible that if he did drop it, someone could have just scooped
it up and took it with them, because it was a couple of days
before anyone even noticed that Trevor was missing. I suppose the same thing with
the umbrella too. If it's a pouring rainstorm and you come across an open
umbrella lying on the ground and no one's around, Shoot, I guess I'll
just take it and use it. Yeah, exactly, especially if you don't
have an umbrella. I think there's just like so many hidden variables here that
either option sounds like a good option, given the fact that we've got so
little information at this point. So interestingly enough, if Trevor had continued on
his route home, it would have required him to walk down Northumberland Road,
an area known as the Embassy Belt, since it houses the embassy buildings for
the United States, Italy, and the Czech Republic. During his initial search
for Trevor on December of the eleventh, his brother Mark Daley spoke to one
of the guards standing outside the US Embassy and learned that President Bill Clinton would
be visiting the following day. According to the guard, the entire surrounding area
was thoroughly inspected over the weekend by the President's advanced security team in order to
prepare for his impending visit. This involved searching all existing trash bins and manholes,
and nothing was found to suggest foul play had recently occurred there. In
other words, if something happened to Trevor on his route home and his body
was hidden anywhere in the surrounding area, the security team likely would have found
it. However, a potential problem is that, since Trevor had not yet
been reported missing at the time this security suite was performed, the team destroyed
potential evidence without even realizing it. That's very scary that you would have such
a massive event like the President of the United States coming and you have his
security team doing a thorough investigation of the area to make sure that it's safe.
But if they don't know what to look for, Robin, you nailed
it, how would they actually protect information or data or things that they're not
even aware that they should be looking for. Right, it wouldn't be contextually
relevant to them at the time. But I'm leaning towards this idea that maybe
he did get an offer for a ride, like, hey man, where
are you going? Just you know, three blocks that way? Well,
hop in, this is crazy. The rains too, you know, is
too strong right now, hop in and let us give you a ride,
and then he doesn't make it home. If he had gone home with wet
clothes and change his clothes and then decided to leave again, you'd think there'd
be some sign that he had been there. He had been traveling for three
weeks prior to coming home the night before, so you would think something indicate
to his flatmates that he had come home from the party. What he had
been wearing at the party would have likely been changed and on his bed or
in the dirty clothes, because he would have changed out of the wet clothes,
So it doesn't seem like he actually made it through those doors. And
as long as the person was charismatic enough and not scary. You wouldn't need
to struggle with him to get him in the vehicle. All you'd have to
do, like you said, is offer, hey, do you want to
ride, and barring the person doesn't look like they'd be a serial killer,
I think most people in that situation, given the options or lack thereof,
would go Okay, yeah, like this sounds like a good option. And
so yeah, it's entirely possible that somebody was just opportunistic and came across Trevor.
Yeah, that certainly is possible. And getting back to Ashley's point,
they never did find any evidence that Trevor made it to his apartment. I
mean, I suppose it's possible because his flatmates were out for the week,
so they would never be able to confirm or deny it. But like you
said, they never found any clothing laying around to indicate that he changed and
I don't think they found any evidence that he had used his key or anything
like that. And I'm sure he would have been captured if there were any
other CCTV cameras in the vicinity of his apartment. So yeah, I agree,
he probably never made it there. There would be no major developments in
the case during the next several years, and it seemed like Trevor had just
vanished into thin air. In twenty seventeen, a forensic enhancement was done to
the CCTV footage of Trevor in hopes of getting a better glimpse of the mysterious
man in black seen standing outside the gates of the BIAM headquarters, as well
as the man seen walking thirty seconds behind Trevor when he passed by the ATM.
But even after the enhancement, investigators could not conclusively determine if both men
were the same person. In spite of this, one hundred thousand dollars euro
reward, which had been provided by an anonymous donor, was offered for information
well in August of that year, the Guardie announced that they had received a
promising new lead and were performing an extensive search a three acre wooded site in
the Chapel Lizard area of South Dublin, located approximately eight kilometers from where Trevor
was last seen. An informant had come forward with information alleging that a member
of a well known criminal family from the Krumlin suburb had confessed to him about
shooting Trevor before burying his body inside a Draine and Chapel lizard. This man's
story was that Trevor had been beaten and put inside the trunk of a car
before he was brought to a house and threatened a gunpoint. Apparently the person
responsible was just trying to scare Trevor and didn't have any intention of killing him.
But the gun discharged and Trevor was shot dead by accident. Okay,
what's interesting is that they have this come out after they show the CCTV footage.
There's this link and there's a reward, right obviously, but there's this
link that the informant is saying, Oh, I know what happened to this
kid? Do we think it has anything to do with the man in black?
Or do we think it's more motivation from the reward even if it's not
true information. Well, I was going to talk about the informant actually said
that he didn't care about the reward, that he only wanted to do the
right thing and provide a resolution for a Trevor's family, even though they never
found any evidence to support a story. So, looking at the media coverage
from twenty seventeen, I do think that police took this guy seriously, but
they just didn't find any evidence. So the suspect was not publicly named,
but the GUARDI confirmed that he had an extensive criminal history in the drug trade
and some of his associates were alleged to have been involved in running street prostitution
in the Begott Street area around the time of Trevor's disappearance. It's worth noting
that in June of nineteen ninety eight, a twenty one year old sex worker
named Shanade Kelly have been stabbed fourteen times and her body was found on the
banks of the Grand Canal off Begatt Street, close to where Trevor was last
seen. Well. It's believed that Kelly was murdered on the orders of a
drug dealeror she owed money to. There was never enough evidence to make a
rest and her murder officially remains unsolved. The informant who came forward with the
information about Trevor claimed he was not interested in the one hundred thousand euro reward,
but just wanted to clear his guilty conscience. The guard he spent six
weeks searching and excavated the site at Chapel Lizard but failed to turn up any
evidence that Trevor had been buried there. But at an odd turn of events,
a handgun and a consignment of heroin and cocaine worth over eighty thousand euros
was found buried at the site. It's believed that the location had been used
as a stash area for criminals, but authorities do not think the gun or
the drugs have anything to do with Trevor's case. Let me ask you this,
do we know if Trevor has any recreational use of drugs or would have
had a reason to run into people who are involved in this criminal enterprise?
Anyone knows of Like everyone said that he was just like a good guy who
always stayed out of trouble, and even if he did like drugs, it
probably was something more like marijuana. And he does not strike me as someone
who had an interest in hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. So I mean,
I guess it's anything. Anything's possible. He could have bumped into someone
to try to purchase drugs out the street, but if he did have an
interest in that, he kept it well hidden well. On the twenty three
year anniversary of Trevor's disappearance. Only a few days before we recorded this episode,
there would be a significant announcement the mysterious man in black seen walking past
the ATM camera had finally been identified. Details are vague about how this happened,
but the Guardie once again attempted a forensic enhancement of all the CCTV footage
from the case and hired the services of a UK based company who specialized in
this. They apparently did such a good job at enhancing the quality of the
footage that investigators were able to identify the man in black. His name has
not been released publicly, but after reinterviewing him, the GUARDI officially ruled him
out as a suspect. They do not believe he was involved in Trevor's disappearance
and it was nothing more than a coincidence that he just happened to pass by
the ATM camera shortly about thirty seconds after Trevor did. But what's particularly frustrating
is that this man apparently provided a statement to the GUARDI during the early stages
of the investigation, so they did have his name on file, but for
whatever reason, this information seemed to be overlooked and forgotten about for two decades.
That is incredibly frustrating. One of the things that I find so fascinating
when I'm in when i'm working cold cases or i'm helping and I'm looking through
case files, is I'll say, hey, did anyone link this piece of
material to this piece of material? And it's the idea that there's so much
information but also no information at all, that it's very difficult to provide any
kind of organization or structured to a case file. Right There's things that you
don't logically link to events that there's no context to put them in. And
so when I would go back years later, coming with a fresh perspective,
not having any kind of preconceived ideas, not having talked to witnesses or interviewed
family or anything like that, if you're just looking at the file years later,
you are able to see different things. If more information has been learned,
you're able to start to connect those puzzle pieces. But at the moment
when you have we really don't even know where Trevor is. There's probably so
many tips and leads and interviews and witnesses. It sounds maddening that there'd be
no link, but it is very hard to say how do you make those
links when there's so little to actually pull together a story. I don't know
if that makes sense, but it's daunting. There's tiny, tiny bits of
breadcrumbs everywhere, and when you step back years later, sometimes you can build
those breadcrumbs into something, But at the time it just seems like, just
drop it in the file, Just drop it in the file, And so
so many things do get overlooked like this. Well, this sort of thing
does happen a lot like An infamous example of this from recent years is the
Delphi murders, where the man they've arrested for the crime, Richard Allen,
it turned out he had spoken to I think a Forest services officer on the
day of the murders, placing himself in the area during the time period of
the crime. But his statement was kept in a file for something like five
years before anyone took a fresh look at it, and it finally paved the
way to his arrest. And this may be a thing here, where this
guy gave a statement just saying he was in the area, it was forgotten
about, and while the details are vague, I guess maybe when they looked
at the footage, somebody put two and two together. Maybe they thought,
hey, he kind of looks like this guy I remember, and then they
found this guy's name in the file, They reinterviewed him, and then finally
ruled him out as being involved in Trevor's disappearance. Now, thanks to the
forensic enhancement of the CCTV footage, investigators were finally able to determine with absolute
certainty that the man in black scene passing by the ATM camera was not the
same man in black captured in CCTV footage outside BIAM headquarters when Trevor arrived there
at three thirty five am. This man has still never been identified, and
while there's nothing to indicate that he was involved in Trevor's disappearance, investigators would
still like to track him down and question him so he can at least be
ruled out as a suspect. Trevor's family have described the identification of the second
man in black as a quote unquote bittersweet moment, because even though it answered
one of the case's biggest questions, it essentially brought the investigation back to square
one. If this man did not play any role in Trevor's disappearance, then
what actually happened to him. Well, after twenty three years, he continues
to remain a missing person, So I guess you could say the path went
chilly. What is really interesting is that first man actually doesn't doesn't have as
strong of a tie to Trevor as the second man in black, because remember,
he's the one who actually sees Trevor prior to Trevor going into his workplace
to have a cup of coffee to send that email, and then that man
leaves the frame of the closed circuit television and so when you are looking at
the man at the ATM machine, that's somebody who might have been one of
the very last humans to actually see Trevor. And so, as frustrating as
it is that we don't know who that first man in black is, knowing
that he's not the same person as the man in black at the ATM machine
almost makes him kind of pointless in my mind. It is true because there
is technically no other CCTV footage of this first man in black, because if
he had been the same man walking past the ATM camera, you could think,
well, he was hanging around outside waiting for Trevor to leave, and
then he followed him all the way to that spot. But now that we
know that the guy at the ATM was a completely different person with no connection
to the guy at the bank, then yeah, it does seem that he's
pretty much a red herring. But they at least one who identify him and
questioning him, so they could be one hundred percent certain he was not involved,
or at least be certain that he didn't see anything suspicious which could shed
light on Trevor's disappearance. So Trevor Deely's disappearance is definitely a prime example of
the most baffling type of missing person's case in which there is virtually no evidence
to work with, and it's easy to see why this has become one of
the most famous mysteries in the history of Ireland. If I had to name
some American missing person's cases which were equivalent to this one, the best examples
I could think of are the disappearances of Brian Schaefer and Brandon Swanson. Much
like Trevor's story, both of these cases involved young men who went out for
a night of drinking and partying and then just vanished off the face of the
earth. What's particularly frustrating here is how differently things could have turned out for
Trevor if not for a series of unfortunate circumstances. For instance, if there
hadn't been a taxi strike in Dublin, Trevor simply could have taken a cab
home that night and arrived safely. If it wasn't for the massive rainstorm,
Trevor may not have felt the need to take a detour to his workplace to
grab an umbrella. If his two flatmates were out of town on holiday at
that time, then an entire weekend might not have passed without anyone noticing that
Trevor was missing. The Daily family are one of the most proactive families when
it comes to keeping their missing loved ones case in the spotlight, and you
have to feel immense sympathy for them. Oh, that's the it's the one
of the saddest things you have witnessed. I think when you look at these
cases, you know, for people listening to a podcast or people watching a
TV show, it's it's interesting and kind of entertaining to hear case details that
don't have any kind of personal connection to you and wondering about the human nature
behind those. But when you're a family living in it. You don't get
to turn the computer off or your phone off or the TV off. This
is constant for you. And in Trevor's case, because he's a missing person,
they're dealing with immense questions. What if he's still alive. Could he
be hurt right now? Could he be looking for us? Could we be
doing more right to make sure he knows where we are? Could he be
dead right? There's no answers for them, And so instead of just having
to grieve the missing nature of their son, they now also have to take
on roles as investigators and media personnel and you know, the sleuths themselves,
or at least public relations experts themselves, when that's not really part of the
grieving process, right. It stops them from being able to find peace and
take a deep breath in these moments. And so I feel so sad for
the idea that they have to be doing this if they want Trevor to stay
relevant. And yet it's one of the most exhausting and devas stating things that
a family can be forced to do in the midst of also trying to grieve
and heal and have any sense of normalcy in their lives. Well, you've
spoken to us about this before, ash with your experience working with cold case
detectives, that it's the families that you know are there and they're reminding the
detectives, and they're reminding law enforcement, and they're going to the media,
and they're being really loud about it. They're the ones, unless you know,
the circumstances where it's a very affluent family or something like that. But
if you've got a family that is really loud, they're going to get more
attention than somebody that sits back. So that puts an unfair burden on a
family to continually be reminding everybody about the case, when you'd hope that there
would just be an equal amount of investigation with regards to these cases across the
board, but unfortunately that just doesn't seem to be what happens. That's exactly
right, I mean, the reality is is that officers can only work a
case so hard. Detectives can only work so hard. But if they don't
have a lead, if they don't have information to go on, they're going
to go and look at the squeaky wheel that needs the grease. If they
don't have a piece of evidence to chase in any other case, and they
have a mother or a father or a sister who's begging them on a daily
basis to please give them an update. Please look into this, Please pay
attention to me. When I have the time and I'm not sidetracked by something
with a more promising piece of evidence, I am going to go to the
people who are begging me and I form a connection with It's a human nature
that's just natural. And as an aside, at the time we're recording this,
I've done a bunch of trail in Cold episodes about cases that took place
at Christmas that are still unsolved to this day. And recurring theme that I've
seen with the families of these victims is they've said that every year around Christmas
they are no longer able to celebrate it or have fun because it's a constant
reminder of what happened to their missing or murdered loved one. And I think
that's probably the same thing with Trevor's case, because he happened to go missing,
like right before the Christmas holidays when they were going to spend some time
together. So every year around December, it's a very sad time for them,
and it's been going on now for twenty three consecutive years, so I
think this would be a good time to bring it in to part one.
But join us next week as we present part two of our series about the
disappearance of Trevor Deely. Robin, do you want to tell us a little
bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has
been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you
cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our
five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I
talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed,
so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier three,
the ten dollars tier. One of the features were of is a audio
commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries, where you can download an audio
file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube
and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just
provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally,
the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring
this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I
make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier
three. So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jules
and Ashy patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili.
We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into
a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check
out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes. So I want
to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us
on social media with a friend or durrate and review is greatly appreciated. You
can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us
on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until next time, 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,