1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:07,280 You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas. 2 00:00:07,799 --> 00:00:12,080 I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now 3 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:16,039 trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other 4 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:20,280 victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway 5 00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:24,640 murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together 6 00:00:24,679 --> 00:00:28,519 with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a 7 00:00:28,559 --> 00:00:32,479 researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social 8 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,799 media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner 9 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,799 in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly 10 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:47,119 and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Andrea Lankford here to talk 11 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:51,119 to us about her book Trail of the Lost, The relentless search to bring 12 00:00:51,159 --> 00:00:55,960 home the missing hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrea, thank you for 13 00:00:56,039 --> 00:00:59,479 joining us today. We appreciate you being here. Yeah, I'm glad to 14 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,880 be here. Thanks thanks for having me. Go ahead and start by telling 15 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:06,840 our listeners about your new book and ultimately why you decided to write it. 16 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:14,519 Trail Loss came out last August twenty three. It is about three hikers who 17 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,760 went missing for the Pacific Crest Trail and my journey to try to figure out 18 00:01:18,799 --> 00:01:23,719 why. I started writing the book in November twenty seventeen, and I embedded 19 00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:30,719 myself with a group of amateur sleus searchers for five years. We did our 20 00:01:30,359 --> 00:01:34,760 darnedest to try to solve this mystery. I'll also befitted the families of the 21 00:01:34,799 --> 00:01:41,480 missing people, and so this book is a big journey of showing what the 22 00:01:41,519 --> 00:01:47,480 things I learned and solved during that research tell us a little bit about what 23 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:53,239 happens when a hiker goes missing in a national park. Most of us go 24 00:01:53,319 --> 00:01:57,519 to national parks, have a wonderful time. We might interact with the rangers 25 00:01:57,519 --> 00:02:01,159 and other staff, but for the most part, except for maybe asking directions 26 00:02:01,319 --> 00:02:07,959 or attending a workshop, most of our interactions with the National Park Service rangers 27 00:02:07,959 --> 00:02:15,800 and staff are not emergencies. What happens when a hiker goes missing. Now, 28 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:19,719 when you're a park ranger, you usually refer to this as an overdue 29 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,199 hiker, and you can get reports to overdew hikers several times a day, 30 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:25,719 definitely several times a week if you work at a busy park like the Grand 31 00:02:25,759 --> 00:02:30,759 Canyon or Dysemity. And usually what happened is a friend will say, hey, 32 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,599 hey, Joe went hiking into the Grand Canyon. He didn't show up 33 00:02:34,599 --> 00:02:38,199 for work, or he didn't show up meet us for dinner tonight. And 34 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:45,159 when the ranger gets that type of report, we are trained to treat this 35 00:02:45,199 --> 00:02:49,800 as an emergency because there's a good chance this hikers in trouble somewhere in the 36 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:53,599 wilderness and need your help right away. So the ranger starts to investigate and 37 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:58,520 ask questions, is maybe assign someone to be the an investigator. You also 38 00:02:58,719 --> 00:03:00,639 will often send a hasty set, what you call a hasty team, and 39 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:04,960 a hast ty could be rangers on foot, or it could be jumping in 40 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:07,280 a helicopter and flying to where you think this person may be in trouble. 41 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:12,800 The other thing that ranger needs to do when they get an overde higer case 42 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:17,120 is contain the search area. And containing the search area can involve setting up 43 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:22,400 a roadlock or having somebody at the trailhead to make sure the person doesn't hike 44 00:03:22,479 --> 00:03:25,240 out of the search area without you knowing it. So, Andrew, you've 45 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:32,439 said that overdue hikers happen on the daily. How many times? How many 46 00:03:32,439 --> 00:03:38,000 occasions do we have in which people have gone missing and national parks and just 47 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:43,759 have not been found. Do we have a number on that? There is 48 00:03:43,759 --> 00:03:49,159 a number that gets thrown around. It's probably an underestimate because the federal government 49 00:03:49,159 --> 00:03:52,879 has not done a good job across your stations like your US Forest, your 50 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:57,680 National Park Service, your other wilderness lands of tracking this. But the number 51 00:03:57,719 --> 00:04:01,680 that gets thrown around is sixteen hundred high akers have gone missing and stayed missing 52 00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:09,400 international parks now the overdue hiker. One thing that's interesting is around ninety seven 53 00:04:09,479 --> 00:04:13,680 percent of those cases are resolved within twenty four to forty eight hours versus usually 54 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:18,079 not alive. Sometimes the body is recovered, so it is rare, but 55 00:04:18,519 --> 00:04:23,040 there's still a pretty big number. Sixteen hundred, even as an underestimate, 56 00:04:23,079 --> 00:04:27,279 that's a pretty big number of assault cases. I know, it's hard to 57 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:32,319 generalize of the ninety seven percent, which is a pretty happy statistic of hikers 58 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:39,519 that are found. What are some typical reasons for why they were overdue if 59 00:04:39,639 --> 00:04:44,199 what are the classic explanations, as I'm sure lots of different things happen, 60 00:04:44,319 --> 00:04:48,560 but what are fairly typical things that happen to a hiker and then he or 61 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:54,079 she has later found. Yeah, it really runs the gam and the best 62 00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:59,639 is they just overextended their self and they are just not out yet, there's 63 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,000 still walking, hiking, flimping maybe when they just haven't got out. Another 64 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:08,639 is they get lost and they're wondering around lost. Another they fallen or they 65 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:14,720 fall into hypothermia and they're either injured or they've passed away. And so usually 66 00:05:14,759 --> 00:05:20,079 it's an environmental thing, an accident of some kind the scarier ones, or 67 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:25,639 every once in a while is foul ply. Also on occasion it's a voluntary 68 00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:30,000 disappearance where they actually are either pretending to be missing, or they are contemplating 69 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:33,759 suicide, or they're not even in the area that you're searching them. They're 70 00:05:33,759 --> 00:05:40,560 off having a vendor or something. That those voluntary disappearances do happen on occasion. 71 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:46,600 I think of the proximity of the Grand Canyon National Park in Las Vegas, 72 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:51,560 having combined visits to those two areas in the same vacation, I think 73 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,480 that would be unusual, wouldn't it if someone said, Oh, I went 74 00:05:55,519 --> 00:05:58,920 to the Grand Canyon, but in reality, I took a side trip to 75 00:05:59,199 --> 00:06:02,720 Las Vegas and went on a vendor. Yes, I worked at Grand Canyon 76 00:06:02,959 --> 00:06:08,720 about four years, and we would make jokes about people being in Vegas. 77 00:06:08,959 --> 00:06:12,959 The rangers like, I don't think I ever had a case where they actually 78 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:17,480 weren't in the park, So that is rare. The interesting when I was 79 00:06:17,639 --> 00:06:23,319 researching Trail the Lass, there seems and you'll hear families of the missing talk 80 00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:27,759 about this, and it seems to be something more like the county agencies do 81 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,920 where they especially if a young male goes and missing, they just the comps 82 00:06:30,959 --> 00:06:38,120 have a tendency to assume they're doing this on purpose, and that's very frustrating 83 00:06:38,199 --> 00:06:40,959 for the family because the family will be like, oh, no, not 84 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:43,879 my son. He would be on he would call his mom, things like 85 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,639 that, and that bias I think could be a problem in my experience from 86 00:06:47,639 --> 00:06:53,160 researching the book, when someone does go missing in the wilderness and you have 87 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:56,120 to send out a search team for them, whether that's in the Grand Canyon 88 00:06:56,199 --> 00:07:01,360 or Yosemite. What are some of the issues that face NPS rangers and rescue 89 00:07:01,399 --> 00:07:06,959 personnel when they're out looking for someone who's gotten missing. You've got vast wilderness, 90 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:12,240 treacherous areas. Often people go missing when the weather, when there's a 91 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:16,040 big storm, there's an avalanche situation on in Tahoe. I'll see it's Tahoe 92 00:07:16,079 --> 00:07:19,920 right now. It's wide out and they've got people buried in the snow. 93 00:07:20,319 --> 00:07:25,879 So not only is that just hard to search for people, it's also hazardous 94 00:07:25,879 --> 00:07:30,360 for the searchers. You also have staffing most star agency search and rescue agencies, 95 00:07:30,399 --> 00:07:36,560 and definitely the Natural Bark Service is understaffed. You also have triage issues 96 00:07:36,639 --> 00:07:42,160 because let's say you've got three people buried in avalanche, and then you've got 97 00:07:42,199 --> 00:07:46,040 five skiers who fell and broke bones over here, and so you have to 98 00:07:46,079 --> 00:07:50,279 trioge how you're going to respond, like in the Mashazli situation. So those 99 00:07:50,279 --> 00:07:55,920 are some biggies. Another is cooperation. Are sometimes these errors are in more 100 00:07:55,959 --> 00:08:00,680 than one jurisdiction, So are the agencies cooperating with each other others to help 101 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:05,279 get these people found? You mean adjoining lands where you may be leaving a 102 00:08:05,399 --> 00:08:11,319 national park and entering a state park or some other preserve. How does one 103 00:08:11,439 --> 00:08:16,160 end up in one place versus another. Yes, it's that's exactly. One 104 00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:20,800 of the issues that I write about travel loss is with one of the missing 105 00:08:20,839 --> 00:08:26,160 hikers, Chris Fowler. He went missing in Washington State in the Pacific Crest 106 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:28,920 Trail. This is a long trail. Yeah, it's twenty five hundred plus 107 00:08:28,959 --> 00:08:33,440 miles, and so it goes through numerous counties, three states, in two 108 00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:37,960 countries and through hiker is out there for a week, months, and so 109 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:45,320 they're crossing jurisdictions on an alley basis sometimes. So in the Chris Fowler case, 110 00:08:45,399 --> 00:08:48,480 what happened, it was real easy for the agencies to go, he's 111 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:50,279 on in my county, it's in your county, in that county's in that 112 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:54,120 county. And so the family was having to do a run around of your 113 00:08:54,279 --> 00:08:58,200 run around with five different counties to try to get somewhere to initiate a search. 114 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:01,559 That was very frustrating to them. And I'll write about that a trail 115 00:09:01,639 --> 00:09:05,519 the loss. Oh. I was absolutely appalled by that when I read that 116 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:11,799 section. That's unbelievable. Let's turn our attention very briefly to crime and national 117 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:16,240 parks, which is something that is a concern for both of us. So 118 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:20,159 what are the numbers like when we think about crime and national park? Is 119 00:09:20,159 --> 00:09:24,679 that something that happens terribly often? What are the numbers for crime like in 120 00:09:24,759 --> 00:09:31,159 national parks? Unfortunately we don't really know one. We've got jurisdictional issues. 121 00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:35,440 You have some parks like you may the rangers have exclusive jurisdiction, and you 122 00:09:35,559 --> 00:09:37,960 seemity you could probably go there and get pretty good numbers and what the crime 123 00:09:39,039 --> 00:09:43,279 rates is, but other parts it shared with the county, and so a 124 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:48,480 lot of numbers could get lost in the system. So I'm going off of 125 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:52,600 experience, and so from my experensive ranger, it's definitely more than people think, 126 00:09:54,039 --> 00:09:58,559 but it's probably less than in your home, like driving to your workplace 127 00:09:58,639 --> 00:10:01,320 or going to the mall. Probably less than that, but it's more than 128 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:07,200 what you think. It's still it's a problem. Still there would want no 129 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:09,799 crime and no foul play in the national parks would be the pert preference. 130 00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:16,440 Is there a database somewhere where all of these incidences of crime and national parks 131 00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:22,559 is stored? If there is, I can't find it, and so I 132 00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:26,399 don't. Like I said, you could probably call Yosemite and maybe they'd make 133 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:31,360 you have a what where you have to ask for information public information requests. 134 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:33,879 You could probably get some good numbers over park block yusemity, but over the 135 00:10:33,919 --> 00:10:39,919 system as a whole that exists, I can't find it. Wow, You're 136 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:43,759 not the only National Park Service employee or former employee that we've ever talked to 137 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:48,759 who has brought this up. So this has come up several times. I 138 00:10:48,759 --> 00:10:52,519 don't want to bog the podcast down with this too much, but I will 139 00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:56,600 say some of the people that we've talked to have said they think that this 140 00:10:56,759 --> 00:11:01,679 is deliberate on the part of the Park Service. That the Park Service wants 141 00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:07,440 to sell us something which is the great outdoors and access to natural lands. 142 00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:11,759 And I get it how wonderful national parks are. At the same time, 143 00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:18,000 much like Disneyland or any other big operation, they don't want to focus on 144 00:11:18,039 --> 00:11:24,080 the fact that occasionally it may be rare from an overall perspective, but sometimes 145 00:11:24,159 --> 00:11:28,080 bad things do happen inside national parks. It seems like the Park Service doesn't 146 00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:33,879 want to talk about it. I've gotten the same feeling when I was arranged 147 00:11:33,879 --> 00:11:37,440 at Yosemite. They assigned me to go with a news crew, and I 148 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:41,759 was naive and I just showed them what was happening. We went into the 149 00:11:41,799 --> 00:11:46,519 evidence, we looked at guns and drugs, and took them on actual crime 150 00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:50,879 scenes. What I've heard is that the Concession wasn't too happy with the story 151 00:11:50,919 --> 00:11:54,679 that came out because it was disturbing to the viewers. Oh my gosh, 152 00:11:54,679 --> 00:11:58,080 there's a lot of crime going on Yosemite, and that we were told to 153 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:03,240 not talk about these things to the media anymore. We've also found in the 154 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:11,399 Colonial Parkway murders that we've gotten sometimes a distinct lack of cooperation in terms of 155 00:12:11,720 --> 00:12:16,600 access. Even several years back, when we wanted to search for some missing 156 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:22,799 persons who was part of the Colonial Parkway murders, we actually asked the National 157 00:12:22,799 --> 00:12:26,919 Park Service for permission to bring in cadaver dogs. And these are professionals and 158 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:31,240 they know how to conduct a search with a very low impact. Boy, 159 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:35,519 did they give us a tremendous amount of grief. It was one roadblock after 160 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:41,200 another, to the point where all of the families involved were so exasperated with 161 00:12:41,279 --> 00:12:46,320 the National Park Service. I actually said, it feels like they're more concerned 162 00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:50,919 about the blades of grass in the Colonial Parkway National Park than they would be 163 00:12:50,960 --> 00:12:56,159 about the fact that we think several murders happened there and our loved ones are 164 00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:01,559 still out there inside that national park and they are doing everything they can to 165 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:07,519 prevent us from looking for it. I think sometimes there's a very strong pr 166 00:13:07,639 --> 00:13:13,960 focus on the part of the Park Service. Yeah, there's something there. 167 00:13:13,080 --> 00:13:18,480 I don't understand it. It does exist outside the partures as well. This 168 00:13:18,639 --> 00:13:26,879 is tangental to issues I discussed in trail loss. For example, drones can 169 00:13:26,279 --> 00:13:31,159 be used to find to work cold cases. They could do a grid photograph 170 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:35,279 search, take photographs. Those photographs can be searched by humans that are called 171 00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:39,960 squinters because they're staring at the computer screen searching images all day. And this 172 00:13:41,039 --> 00:13:45,919 has been successful. But drones aren't allowed in the national park or wildness areas 173 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:50,759 or state parks. And there's other cases where even the FAA has been problems 174 00:13:50,799 --> 00:13:54,080 with drone searchers in Texas for example, just being two. They need to 175 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,480 be, in my opinion, more flexible when it comes to human life, 176 00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:03,879 and so we can let a blade of grass go on occasion. Totally agreed. 177 00:14:05,639 --> 00:14:09,519 I want to pivot to this subject of trail of the lost which is 178 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:13,759 the missing hikers on the PCT. I think most people have probably heard of 179 00:14:13,799 --> 00:14:18,519 the Appalachian Trail before, but there may not be people who are as familiar 180 00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:22,559 with the Pacific Crest Trail. Can you give a brief overview for anybody who's 181 00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:28,799 not familiar? What is the PCT? The Pacific Crest Trail runs through the 182 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:33,120 Pacific Coast states California, Oregon, Washington. It goes from the Mexico border 183 00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:37,759 in California all the way up to the Canadian border in Washington. It's twenty 184 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:43,879 five hundred miles a little bit more nap and people do like it. Now, 185 00:14:43,639 --> 00:14:46,960 you guys, if you're thinking, then you've read you might understand why 186 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,519 the numbers of people wanted to throw hide the trail, and that's people want 187 00:14:50,559 --> 00:14:52,360 to go from A to B all the way to Canada to Mexico in one 188 00:14:52,440 --> 00:15:00,679 season since the release of trail Strain's memoir Wild in the movie Starr Res Witherspoon 189 00:15:01,159 --> 00:15:05,080 that came out in December twenty fourteen, So it was since that movie came 190 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:07,200 out the numbers of people wanted to do this of skyrocketed. They had to 191 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:13,480 issue a permit system to curtail the numbers each day, and it's also a 192 00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:18,360 new kind of hikers are attracted to it. People who are seeking a new 193 00:15:18,399 --> 00:15:24,720 life, the more seeking spiritual growth, like Cheryl Strait in her novel or 194 00:15:24,759 --> 00:15:30,120 her memoir. Not necessarily you're hardy. I've climb Mount Everest and k two 195 00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:33,559 type people are hiking it. There's potential there for problems because people were hitting 196 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:39,039 the trail a little bit naive, and the city of Christill is very rugged 197 00:15:39,279 --> 00:15:43,200 and very remote. These are living the Sierra the North Cascades in Washington. 198 00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:48,399 These are very rugged, dangerous areas. My boyfriend had done some hiking in 199 00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:52,600 the Sierras when he was in high school and lived in California, and when 200 00:15:52,639 --> 00:15:56,919 I told him about this section of the PCT, he was like, you 201 00:15:56,960 --> 00:16:00,200 could not pay me enough money to try to hike that. He was like, 202 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,480 it's very rugged and very difficult, and he was teasing me. He 203 00:16:03,559 --> 00:16:06,679 was like, we can go out there sometimes. I said, you know 204 00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:10,840 what, No, I think I'm good. I think I'm good. Especially 205 00:16:10,879 --> 00:16:14,759 having read this and looking at those photos, I got a sense of just 206 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:22,039 how terribly imposing the sounds. So what drew you to the stories of Chris 207 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:27,519 Sherpe Fowler, David O'Sullivan, and Christopher Sylvia. How did you have those 208 00:16:27,679 --> 00:16:32,480 come onto your radar? So to speak? I heard about a case, 209 00:16:32,919 --> 00:16:36,840 the Chris Sylvia case. He was twenty eight years old and he was hiking 210 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:41,960 the Pacific Christ Trail in twenty fifteen, and he vanished in February, and 211 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:47,159 the San Diego County that's in southern California, they searched hard for him. 212 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:49,200 They had dogs or patrol agents, you name it, where out there trying 213 00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,639 to find him for five days, and then they eventually gave up. But 214 00:16:52,799 --> 00:16:59,440 his gear was found on the Pacific Crist Trail. And his circumstances reminded me 215 00:16:59,519 --> 00:17:03,159 of a case I had worked at the Grand Kenyon of another young man in 216 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:06,599 his twenties and I failed to find him. I was assigned as the search 217 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:11,160 coordinator, and I tried to coordinate the entire search effort. I didn't find 218 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:14,920 the guy, and that bothered me. I had to tell his husband that 219 00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:18,880 we were winded. His father excuse me that we were winding down the search, 220 00:17:18,319 --> 00:17:22,240 and it bothered me. Fears it haunted me. So the Chris Silvia 221 00:17:22,279 --> 00:17:25,640 case reminded me of that case. So much. I just had a compassionate 222 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:29,400 impulse and I called his family and asked for their blessing to open a pro 223 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:33,400 bono investigation into that case. Now, from that case, I started to 224 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,680 learn about the I look for patterns. I investigated case, and I learned 225 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:41,160 there were two other young men who were missing for the Pacific christ Trail, 226 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:45,240 three young men, one each year, three years in a row. And 227 00:17:45,279 --> 00:17:48,279 that struck me as uncanny. And so then I started to meet some of 228 00:17:48,319 --> 00:17:55,319 these amateur sleuths, and I joined their effort and was just compelled to do 229 00:17:55,400 --> 00:18:00,279 my best alongside them to try to solve this mystery. So I would say 230 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:04,319 for me that one of the most intriguing parts of the book was reading about 231 00:18:04,519 --> 00:18:08,039 the people that you met online, some of you you eventually met in real 232 00:18:08,079 --> 00:18:12,680 life, who were dedicated to searching for Chris, Scherpa and David. What 233 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:17,960 would you say were some of the highlights for you of working with online researchers 234 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:19,720 and what are some of the challenges as well that come along with that. 235 00:18:21,279 --> 00:18:26,039 Yeah, that's an excellent question. What happened is I started joining the Facebook 236 00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:30,960 missing hiker groups, and especially the Chris Fowler Missing Hiker group, and I 237 00:18:30,079 --> 00:18:34,400 was watching all these amateur searchers, and by amateurs, I just mean they're 238 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:38,200 not professional searchers. They're professional people, a lot of them, but they 239 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:42,519 don't search for a living. And to me, these Facebook missing hiker groups 240 00:18:42,559 --> 00:18:48,839 were joining those is like walking into the saloon in a while with anything goes. 241 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:52,960 You've got all kind of rowdy characters in there, bitter squabbles are likely 242 00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:56,200 to break out at any time. It's a little rough and rowdy in there. 243 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,079 But every once in a while I'd see the saloon doors open at this 244 00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:04,200 crazy Facebook place and a quiet hero would walk in, somebody that had pure 245 00:19:04,279 --> 00:19:08,640 intentions, just wanted to help this family find their missing loved one. And 246 00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:11,720 the first quiet I write about a lot of these quiet heroes, but the 247 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:17,000 first one that struck my interest was a woman named Kathy Tar. She was 248 00:19:17,039 --> 00:19:18,640 near me and age. We were both in our mid fifties at the time, 249 00:19:19,079 --> 00:19:23,359 and she was had searched, given up her summer to search for Chris 250 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:29,240 Fowler in Washington, and she announced on Facebook she was going to drive all 251 00:19:29,240 --> 00:19:33,880 the way down to California to now initiate a search for David O'Sullivan, who 252 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:37,359 went missing about fifty two trail miles north of where Chris Silvia went missing in 253 00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:41,519 southern California. She was going to be there searching for David Sullivan at the 254 00:19:41,519 --> 00:19:45,720 same time I was going to be there searching for Chris Silvia. So I 255 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,039 begged her to meet me for dinner and we started talking, and you could 256 00:19:49,039 --> 00:19:53,480 say once I met Kathy Tar, I was hooked. I wanted to learn. 257 00:19:53,799 --> 00:19:56,319 I want to learn how to be missing and other families, but also 258 00:19:56,359 --> 00:20:02,440 wanted to learn more about this Facebook missing hiker group phenomena. I wanted to 259 00:20:02,519 --> 00:20:08,440 learn more about how the Internet is affecting hyperculture, and so that's where the 260 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:12,720 book was born. Now, I have a perception, and I'm probably wrong 261 00:20:12,799 --> 00:20:17,920 here, that in a lot of our wilderness areas there's no cell service, 262 00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:23,119 and so I was intrigued by this idea that there were Facebook missing hiker groups 263 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:29,200 and that they were using social media as a way of communicating what they were 264 00:20:29,319 --> 00:20:33,519 up to, what they were hoping to do in terms of searching for missing 265 00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:38,160 hikers. So social media actually has had a significant impact on, as you 266 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:42,240 put it, hiker culture. What are some of the ways things are changed 267 00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:49,119 or impacted by new technology. So with the so in a study maybe in 268 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:52,519 a lot of ways. Right, we even know about the selfie phenomenon where 269 00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:56,240 I call it the fatal selfie. Right, they're trying to get a sexy 270 00:20:56,240 --> 00:21:00,519 selfie on the edge of the cliff and they saw fall. Yeah it's very 271 00:21:00,559 --> 00:21:03,920 tragic. Yeah, it's very sad. But in this missing hiker world, 272 00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,880 Facebook is both a blessing and a curse. It'll bring in false leads, 273 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:15,119 It'll bring in catfishers who are trying to get money out of the family. 274 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,079 It'll all these fights. People will get on there and argue, people will 275 00:21:18,079 --> 00:21:23,119 say negative things, but it also will bring positive It'll bring support, it'll 276 00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:27,640 bring awareness, It'll bring in good leads. And in my book, Facebook 277 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:33,119 proves to be a very powerful investigative tool that I couldn't imagine using when I 278 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,559 was looking for my missing hiker, the Grand Kenyon in nineteen ninety five, 279 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:42,279 a clue is found via Facebook. Morgan Clemens for the Amateur Searcher and Kathy 280 00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:48,039 tar that I write about, they prove that a witness statement is false using 281 00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:52,599 Facebook, it just flows lit off. There's just all good and negative things 282 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:56,720 happening in both hiker world and the missing person world via social media, and 283 00:21:56,799 --> 00:22:00,880 as I was reading this, I was definitely seen some of the same things 284 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:06,160 that you do in your Missing hikersocial media groups. We have the same sorts 285 00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:10,880 of dynamics on the pages that we run for the Colonial Parkway murders case. 286 00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:15,000 So this was all looking very familiar at certain points. And we two have 287 00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,799 our quiet heroes, we have our ravel rousers, and we do get the 288 00:22:18,839 --> 00:22:22,599 people who are like I have this big, extravagant lead, but it pans 289 00:22:22,599 --> 00:22:25,880 out to nothing. So this was a very interesting book for me to read 290 00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:30,400 and compare the two experiences. You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be 291 00:22:30,519 --> 00:22:42,079 right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. 292 00:22:44,599 --> 00:22:48,200 You had talked a couple of minutes ago about drone technology, and that 293 00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,119 was one of the things that I was most interested in hearing you talk about 294 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:59,039 here. How has technology like drones helped search and rescue teams and rangers in 295 00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:03,880 locating missing people in hard to search areas. Earlier on I talked about your 296 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,279 hasty search, right, this is when you just shoot out a helicopter, 297 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:11,119 or you shoot out some runners, some humans or some dogs maybe to go 298 00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:15,440 find this missing person, and they are using drones in that way and to 299 00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,200 find people in real time. And this can work well if you've got a 300 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:22,839 person going waving their arms on a mountaintop and the drone can find them, 301 00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,200 or when they use infra red thermal imagery and so they can find a live 302 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:33,160 person because they're warmer than the environment. Where my book focuses on it is 303 00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:37,880 with cold case drone searching, and so with a cold case drone search this 304 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:44,799 is very esoteric at this point, but I also feel very promising, and 305 00:23:44,839 --> 00:23:49,759 they are only a handful or less of teams trying to improve this technique. 306 00:23:49,839 --> 00:23:55,160 And so with a cold case drone grit search is you send a very good, 307 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,799 high quality drone with a drone pilot that's an extremely good problem solver, 308 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,079 and they've got a search area mapped out in GPS. They do it on 309 00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:07,960 the computer software and the drone flys a grid like a lawnmower, back and 310 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,920 forth, and the drone is taking photographs along that grid. You will come 311 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:18,440 back with thousands of photographs. Now they have software that searches, but today 312 00:24:18,599 --> 00:24:22,480 it's just not as good as what humans can do. This is very tedious. 313 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:27,480 If I mentioned already. They call these humans that view these images squinters, 314 00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,880 squinting at their computer screen so much winters, and they're very dedicated. 315 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,480 Yeah, the squinters are very dedicated, hardworking people, and so they're searching 316 00:24:37,519 --> 00:24:44,519 these images looking for clothing, equipment, gear, even bones. There's a 317 00:24:44,599 --> 00:24:48,319 little bit of a spoiler, but in the book this ends up working. 318 00:24:48,559 --> 00:24:56,119 They find missing people using this drone COQ strone image search technique one group Western 319 00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:00,720 State's Area Search in cooperation with the Follower Solar Foundation, which we'll probably talk 320 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:06,960 about later. They have found four people who's in this technique since two thousand 321 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:11,200 and nineteen. I was talking to my boyfriend Mark about that very thing, 322 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:17,359 and he said, thousands of photographs, that's crazy. And then he said 323 00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:19,599 that sounds like that would be the kind of thing that we should be training 324 00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:25,759 AI for, because wouldn't that be a much better use of AI's time rather 325 00:25:25,839 --> 00:25:30,920 than you know, generating memes or giving high school students essays on demand. 326 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,960 Couldn't we be training AI how to identify these sorts of things in photos. 327 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,680 Yes, I believe so. I believe the AI at this point has some 328 00:25:41,759 --> 00:25:45,720 limitations. There's been a study it shows it today with the software that humans 329 00:25:45,759 --> 00:25:51,279 could do it better or quicker with assimilated death scene is what I'm going to 330 00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:55,640 say, is like bones of clothing. But there's promise, and I've talked 331 00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,519 to deep learning experts about this. They feel as this is a solvable problem, 332 00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:06,559 but the AI has to look at thousands, ten thousand images to learn 333 00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:10,319 that, whereas a human beings teach them this is what a femur looks like, 334 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:15,440 much quicker. But there's hope that we will eventually get there. Was 335 00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,039 it going to be one year, two year, ten years, I don't 336 00:26:18,079 --> 00:26:21,359 know, but I do think there's hope that we could train at AI can 337 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:26,519 learn itself how to find clues during a cold case. Dro grid search one 338 00:26:26,559 --> 00:26:30,359 thing I was surprised by and I learned that in your book. I didn't 339 00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:37,039 realize drones could be programmed to fly a grid pattern, which I know is 340 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:44,079 that's searching one oh one. I didn't realize that technology existed. It just 341 00:26:44,319 --> 00:26:48,880 never occurred to me. I've seen drones, but I'm always seeing locally here 342 00:26:48,559 --> 00:26:55,319 a person flying a drone using a handheld controller, so it's almost it felt 343 00:26:55,359 --> 00:27:00,240 to me like those radio controlled airplanes that we'd play with when we were It's 344 00:27:00,079 --> 00:27:04,519 much more sophisticated and expensive, but that's what it felt like. I didn't 345 00:27:04,559 --> 00:27:08,799 realize that the drone could go up there and fly itself back and forth and 346 00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:12,839 do a grid pattern and then come back to you with result. I didn't 347 00:27:12,839 --> 00:27:19,640 realize how sophisticated they've become. Yes, And it's obviously it's getting almost maybe 348 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:25,160 exponentially sophisticated over time. Like I said, we only have a few people 349 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:30,599 working on this technique. I'm hopeful we'll have more, maybe a bigger companies 350 00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,160 doing this that can put more resources to it, or the government. But 351 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:37,440 I've worked with the drone pilots. My husband is trying to do it, 352 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,759 and I worked a case with him, and it's tedious for them as well 353 00:27:40,799 --> 00:27:44,519 as winters. It's a hard job. It's also for the drone pilot to 354 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,160 establish their grid in the software and then to go out in the field and 355 00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:52,119 have the drone fly the grid and hopefully safely for the drone. If we 356 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,640 lose a drone, it's not the end of the world. It's safer than 357 00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,359 losing a person and the aircraft, right, But they can fully do that. 358 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,559 It's like self driving cars. We're there, you just tell the drone 359 00:28:02,559 --> 00:28:04,880 where to go, it'll go and as long as it doesn't hit an obstacle 360 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,839 or bad weather or something, it'll do its job for you. That does 361 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,880 seem like a significant time saver. In other words, you can see the 362 00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:21,559 potential exists for drone search to be something that would be incredibly beneficial in some 363 00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:26,519 of these situations you're describing. Yes, it's potentially a game changer, both 364 00:28:26,599 --> 00:28:32,319 for the hasty, immediately life saving searches and then also the cold case. 365 00:28:32,559 --> 00:28:37,519 These teams could do this very safely and if they have the time, because 366 00:28:37,519 --> 00:28:41,759 it's not an urgent thing, an agency can assign a team to do this 367 00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,279 to try in an attempt to sell the cold case. Now, you need 368 00:28:45,519 --> 00:28:51,319 certain environments. If you're in a Everglades swamp where there's just a big overstory 369 00:28:51,359 --> 00:28:55,319 and you can't see down below, that's not going to be a great case 370 00:28:55,359 --> 00:28:59,839 for a drone. Desert environments are awesome because it's just cactus and you can 371 00:29:00,039 --> 00:29:07,400 see real easily on the spare sparsely visitated terrain is I think potentially fall zones 372 00:29:07,799 --> 00:29:11,319 below locks screen slopes in the mountains also might be a great place for these 373 00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:17,240 drove good searches. Was there any other technology that you came across that you're 374 00:29:17,279 --> 00:29:22,640 particularly excited about as like a new innovation in search and rescue efforts? Or 375 00:29:22,799 --> 00:29:26,400 are drones really that's the cool that's where all the cool kids are looking these 376 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,759 days. Ours are more cool kids looking into this drobe thing. It's I 377 00:29:30,759 --> 00:29:34,160 think it's so tedious. Maybe you need the nerdy the uncool ones working on 378 00:29:34,279 --> 00:29:38,880 it because they have the dedication to be obsessive and nerdy about it. But 379 00:29:40,279 --> 00:29:44,200 the other cool thing are the GPS units. So you've got your garment, 380 00:29:44,839 --> 00:29:48,200 your spot and these other emergency GPS locator devices. Those are going to get 381 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:55,240 better and better, equality they're heavy. Right now, Apple Phone is getting 382 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:57,839 a GPS track, or I think it said the fourteens have it already. 383 00:30:00,119 --> 00:30:03,839 So air tags, those Apple tags, I see. We're going to soon 384 00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,880 get to a point where you can have one of those in your backpack or 385 00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:11,640 in your jacket and it's just easily defined it the airplane could fly over, 386 00:30:11,759 --> 00:30:14,680 get a signal and find you. I think we're not far from that, 387 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,359 so it just be a matter of does every hiker have one on their person 388 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,079 or not? As it's possible. People will still get in trouble, they're 389 00:30:22,119 --> 00:30:23,839 still going to fall, they're still going to maybe die and get lost. 390 00:30:25,359 --> 00:30:29,680 But if they have one of these locator devices on them that we will find 391 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:34,039 them, we'll have fewer unsolved cases when we do have this technology. Do 392 00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,559 you think it's something that everyone is going to be open to having on them 393 00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,119 or are there going to be hiking purists who are like, I'm not hiking 394 00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,920 with a cell phone, I'm not hiking with an air tag. We were 395 00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,319 always going to have some outliers. But I think if the tag, the 396 00:30:48,359 --> 00:30:52,799 GPS tag, let's call it that, if it's lightweight enough, inconvenient, 397 00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:57,400 and inexpensive, I think most of your hikers will not have a problem carrying 398 00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:03,160 on this, especially when they're familiar with the hardship that will occur to their 399 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:07,799 family if they're not found. Yeah, when you're a hiker, I'm guilty 400 00:31:07,799 --> 00:31:08,960 of that a little bit. I'm like, hey, don't search for me. 401 00:31:10,759 --> 00:31:12,920 That's where I want to be. Leave me out there. But as 402 00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,720 being related to someone with the unsolved case, it's one of the worst things 403 00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:22,400 that can happen to a family member or loved one is to not know and 404 00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,839 to not have the answers that you want, and it's called ambiguous loss. 405 00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:30,519 Especially with a missing person, you have no idea what happened to them or 406 00:31:30,519 --> 00:31:33,160 where they are, and so this is very hard for them. You do 407 00:31:33,359 --> 00:31:36,960 not want to do this to your family. If you need any motivation to 408 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,319 have one of these gpassuits, that should be it. Yeah, ask your 409 00:31:40,359 --> 00:31:48,319 mom if you went missing. It almost feels like a spiritual quest or something. 410 00:31:48,359 --> 00:31:51,279 And look, there's a lot of people that are out in the woods, 411 00:31:51,279 --> 00:31:56,960 that are out there for renewal and relaxation. Then they might actually say 412 00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,799 what you said, Andrew, which is, hey, look if I get 413 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,920 I was where I wanted to be, and it's all good. Their moms 414 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,799 and dads, brothers and sisters, their husbands, wives, partners might not 415 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:15,480 feel the same way, particularly as the days and weeks, and in our 416 00:32:15,519 --> 00:32:20,799 example, months and years go by. It's hard. Yeah, at the 417 00:32:20,839 --> 00:32:23,279 other end of that go ahead, yes, And with a missing person there's 418 00:32:23,319 --> 00:32:27,599 the emotional thing, which is the worst of course, but there's also legal 419 00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:31,680 and financial problems because the person can't be declared dead. And so if you're 420 00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:37,160 a bread winner, that which has happened, and so your spouse can't get 421 00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:42,839 access to your insurance to take care of your kids because you're just missing. 422 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,880 So it's a huge problem to have a family member that's missing on several different 423 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:52,039 levels. Yeah, I was thinking about that while you were using that example. 424 00:32:52,079 --> 00:32:54,200 I thought you're right. If someone went out, Let's say, and 425 00:32:54,240 --> 00:33:00,359 they're the breadwinner and they've got a half a million dollar insurance policy, heaven 426 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,880 forbid something happens to them. They want to make sure their spouse and kids 427 00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,960 are provided for. And a lot of times people have a twenty five year 428 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,240 old son now who's in law school. When he was a little bit younger, 429 00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,759 my ex wife and I would talk about, oh, we want to 430 00:33:15,759 --> 00:33:19,559 make sure that Chris has enough money to go to school or do whatever he 431 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,559 wants to do. So there's always this provide for your family motivation, which 432 00:33:23,599 --> 00:33:29,119 I think is valid. And yet if you go missing, you're absolutely right. 433 00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:31,880 The insurance company's not going to pay off. They're going to say, 434 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,559 Joe or Jane could come through the door tomorrow and he or she'll be fine, 435 00:33:36,759 --> 00:33:42,039 or maybe they're in hiding or whatever. There's a lot of bizarre stories 436 00:33:42,079 --> 00:33:47,240 out there. I want to shift back to Chris David and sherpa for a 437 00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:52,680 second. And I hope this doesn't come across as an indelicate question, but 438 00:33:52,839 --> 00:33:55,759 I think we can be frank about it with regard to the missing men, 439 00:33:57,119 --> 00:34:04,039 is the goal now one of recovery or is it still a rescue operation? 440 00:34:04,359 --> 00:34:07,679 Do you think it's possible for any of the men to have survived for this 441 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:13,840 long in the woods and it's just a matter of finding them. From a 442 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,719 professional searcher point of view, yes, it would definitely be recovery, and 443 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:22,679 it's been that for a long time. A professional searcher starts to think recovery 444 00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,239 pretty quickly. But there's something called the survival rule of threes. You can 445 00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,880 live three minutes without oxygen and three d days without water, and three weeks 446 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:37,039 without food, and then shelter can be as short ast three hours if it's 447 00:34:37,079 --> 00:34:42,320 freezing out or you're underwater and where it's cold. This becomes recovery situation fairly 448 00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,639 quickly. Now with these cases, though, the hard part is, especially 449 00:34:46,639 --> 00:34:52,320 when you don't have answers and you don't have a body, is that could 450 00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,599 they possibly be voluntarily MiB seen, you know, without spooning it too much. 451 00:34:55,639 --> 00:35:01,599 One of the hyders in particular, there's some circumstances that suggest that it's 452 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,440 possible that this is someone who just went voluntarily missing. You know, you're 453 00:35:06,559 --> 00:35:10,960 familiar with Chris McCandless in Alaska into the wild people go. Did they go 454 00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,280 m candless? Did they burn all their possessions and just go off and live 455 00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,559 under another name? It does happen. I do think that's the one of 456 00:35:20,599 --> 00:35:24,320 the least likely. There's a low percentage that happened, but it does remain 457 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:30,719 an intriguing possibility for me. For one of them missing, I was going 458 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:36,000 to ask, do you think that is what happened to Chris. I don't 459 00:35:36,159 --> 00:35:42,039 have affirm this happened to any of them. Also, Chris Fowler and Davane 460 00:35:42,039 --> 00:35:45,440 ol Sullivan, there was snowy conditions and cold conditions that lead me to think 461 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:51,599 that was more likely an environmental accident occurred in their case. With Chris, 462 00:35:51,639 --> 00:35:57,079 Sylvia, I'm very much more perplexed. Are there a lot of people hiking 463 00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:02,039 alone in America's wilderness? Yes, I hike alone, and I'm going to 464 00:36:02,079 --> 00:36:07,719 getst a solo hiking, But then you'll hear you are slightly more at risk 465 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:12,559 if you're a solo hiker you're slightly more at risk of trouble or to die 466 00:36:12,599 --> 00:36:15,400 out there. Interesting enough, these statistics are a little bit older. But 467 00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:21,920 a solo male is less likely to survive a perilous counter and outdoors than a 468 00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,480 solo female. So that's counterintuitive to a lot of people. So yes, 469 00:36:25,519 --> 00:36:30,599 there is more risk. But if you're a person who joys sold to solo 470 00:36:30,679 --> 00:36:35,920 hiking, it's a risk worth taking. Now you can mitigate that risk by 471 00:36:36,039 --> 00:36:40,880 planning better and then maybe not doing the hardest core mountain climbing thing alone, 472 00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:45,079 but go down to your local park for a few miles alone. That's see 473 00:36:45,079 --> 00:36:49,239 what I mean, it's nuanced. But yeah, a lot of people hikers 474 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,079 love to go hike alone, all of them, but there are thousands, 475 00:36:52,119 --> 00:36:54,519 if not me, as they did. When you hike the at were you 476 00:36:54,519 --> 00:36:59,639 by yourself or did you have a companion with you? I was a solo 477 00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:01,880 hike of the I bought the trail. I did that in nineteen ninety nine 478 00:37:02,119 --> 00:37:07,960 for cell phone smartphones, and I wanted to hike it alone. Now, 479 00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:12,480 these longestance trails are a very social experience, though there's a trail culture. 480 00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,800 Then there's also what they call the Trammelie, the trail family and people will 481 00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:21,800 look out for you and more on you, so you don't Today you're probably 482 00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,079 not as alone as you want to be. You want to be more alone 483 00:37:23,119 --> 00:37:27,960 than you are because there's more crowds on the trails. Do you want to 484 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,760 fess up as to what your trail name was? Yes, it was Tennessee 485 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,280 Walker, Tennessee Walker. Yeah. I don't know if you guys are hearing 486 00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:43,199 an accent. Now that's Tennessee. That sounds like a brand of alcohol bottle, 487 00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:50,599 it does. I think there's a horse from the horse Tennessee walking horses, 488 00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:55,159 and even the whiskey I think is named for the Tennessee Horse walking horses. 489 00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,840 By the way, we failed to ask you. I know you have 490 00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:04,880 very proud history with the Park Service. Tell us your history about where you 491 00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:09,159 started with the Park Service and some of the places you served. Yeah. 492 00:38:09,199 --> 00:38:13,360 So, I always wanted to work in the outdoors and I loved animals. 493 00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,400 So I got a degree four street from the University of Tennessee. Pretty quickly 494 00:38:16,559 --> 00:38:21,960 got a job as a law enforcement park ranger at Cape Patrish National Seashore in 495 00:38:22,039 --> 00:38:25,440 North Carolina. I wrote a book about this called Ranger confidential around my experience 496 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:30,400 for the Park Service. From Cape Patteris, I went to Zion National Park 497 00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:35,800 in Utah, then Yosemite National Park in California, and then I ended my 498 00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:39,400 career at Green Kyne National Park in Arizona. All of these places are so 499 00:38:39,639 --> 00:38:45,079 stone cold beautiful. As you described each one. Briefly, I thought, 500 00:38:45,199 --> 00:38:46,960 oh, I'd want to be there, and then you move on to the 501 00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:50,159 next one. I'd be like, oh no, I want to be there 502 00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,440 too. This had to be pretty amazing. It was. I fell in 503 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:59,239 love with it really quickly. You know. I was idealistic about the job. 504 00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:02,199 But what happens. I was a protection ranger, and that's to protect 505 00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:06,440 the park from the people, protect the people from the park, and protect 506 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,760 the people from each other. Park rangers store every which way, trying to 507 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:15,079 protect everything things that sometimes they want to kill each other. You are caught 508 00:39:15,119 --> 00:39:19,800 in the middle. I was a protection ranger, is often always does wildwide 509 00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,519 fire, structural far ems. I was a medic and search and rescue as 510 00:39:23,559 --> 00:39:29,519 we've talked about. So there's a lot of heavy duties on one set of 511 00:39:29,519 --> 00:39:31,800 shoulder for the park ranger. Gee, if I'm going to go hiking, 512 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,800 I'm going to ask you if I can go with you, because I feel 513 00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,719 a lot safer all the way around. There's a lot of experience there. 514 00:39:42,159 --> 00:39:44,519 Before we go, I want you to talk to us a little bit about 515 00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:50,199 the work that the Fouler O'Sullivan Foundation is doing and how we can assist you 516 00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,480 and how our listeners can assist you in that work. Yeah, that's one 517 00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:57,840 of the happy endings in Treble Loss is. A foundation is created by Kathy 518 00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,079 Tarr, one of these quiet heroes, and it's all the Fouler of Sullivan 519 00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:06,599 Foundation, named after Chris Speller and David O'Sullivan. This foundation is dedicated to 520 00:40:07,119 --> 00:40:10,679 helping families of missing hikers and preventing hikers from going missing in the first place. 521 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,480 They have a program where you can donate a GPS unit and they will 522 00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:22,119 give that in a lottery system to Drewiker so that a throker that couldn't afford 523 00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:25,440 one can have one of these while they hike. They also initiate searches. 524 00:40:25,559 --> 00:40:30,679 They've found several people on their searches and they're searching for people today using this 525 00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:35,119 drone technique we talked about. They have trained pilots, said they've trained to 526 00:40:35,159 --> 00:40:39,960 do this and so yeah, go check them out. That's on fof found 527 00:40:40,159 --> 00:40:46,480 fofound dot com. So excellent. And so what's next for you in terms 528 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:51,440 of projects? This is a this is a beautiful book, very ambitious. 529 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,119 Are you jumping right into something else or are you taking time to pursue other 530 00:40:55,159 --> 00:41:00,199 projects. I'm taking time off. That was it. I've worked really hard 531 00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,480 on that book. I had some my own adversity in the book, which 532 00:41:04,519 --> 00:41:07,960 I write about, and so I still help out with the Foundation from time 533 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,039 to time, and I've searched for missing people for come to time. But 534 00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:16,880 I'm also taking a break to rest and recover myself for now. So does 535 00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:21,199 that mean you go for walks in the woods. I go for walks alone 536 00:41:21,199 --> 00:41:24,039 in the woods. Yes. The book is Trail of the Lost, the 537 00:41:24,119 --> 00:41:29,800 relentless search to bring home the missing hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrea, 538 00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,480 where can everybody find your book? It's pretty much everywhere. Definitely Amazon, 539 00:41:34,559 --> 00:41:37,440 your local book favorite bookstore, you should be able to find it. 540 00:41:37,519 --> 00:41:40,800 Definitely. You can you order it for sure. Thank you so much for 541 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,559 joining us, Andrea. We love the book and we appreciate you taking the 542 00:41:44,559 --> 00:41:47,679 time to talk to us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Oh, 543 00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:52,679 thank good work. We will try. That is going to do it for 544 00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:57,199 this episode of mind Never Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll 545 00:41:57,199 --> 00:42:10,079 see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and 546 00:42:10,159 --> 00:42:16,000 Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our 547 00:42:16,039 --> 00:42:22,000 logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin mcleoud. 548 00:42:22,519 --> 00:42:27,840 Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media. You can follow 549 00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,039 us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also follow our page 550 00:42:31,039 --> 00:42:36,440 on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill 551 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:42,039 Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas five six. Thank you for listening to mind 552 00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:43,079 Over Murder.