Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's die right into this week's case. June sixteenth, two
thousand and nine, Ross's Point, Ireland, the body of a man who
appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties is found washed up on
a beach, and his cause of death is believed to be a cute cardiac
arrest. Four days earlier, the man had arrived in the nearby town of
Sligo and into a hotel under the name Peter Bergman, but it turns out
this name was fake and he carries no identification. Investigators believe that he traveled
to Ireland from another country, and you CCTV footage to track his movements in
the days prior to his death. When they are unable to uncover Peter Bergmann's
true identity. After that, the Path went Chile. So a few weeks
ago, our podcast traveled to Ireland to cover the unsolved disappearance of Trevor Dealey,
so I figured we should go back there to cover another mystery. This
time it involves an unidentified John Doe. The two thousand and nine death of
a man known only as Peter Bergmann. While the story has garnered a lot
of publicity in Ireland, it does not appear to be that well known in
North America. The victim in question was a middle aged man who traveled to
the town of Sligo and checked into a hotel under the name Peter Bergmann,
but of course it was eventually determined that this was not his real name.
He stayed there for the next three nights before traveling to the nearby village of
Ross's Point, where his body would be discovered on a beach the following morning.
While it does not appear there was foul play involved, the exact circumstances
of how Peter Bergmann died are still unclear, and since he was heard speaking
with an accent which sounded like it might be Austrian, his reasons for traveling
to Ireland to begin with are still a mystery. There is evidence to suggest
that he spent his last days gradually disposing of all personal items which might have
helped reveal his true identity, as is possible he wanted to be completely forgotten
about after he died. However, if that was his intention, the exact
opposite result took place as Peter Bergmann has since become one of Ireland's most heavily
discussed mysteries, and there have been numerous theories presented about his possible identity and
backstory. In spite of the publicity of this case is generated, no one
who recognizes this man has ever come forward, So we're going to explore all
the different themes on today's episode. So a few questions for you. It's
two thousand and nine, and of course this is over in Ireland, it's
not here in the US. But our policy, and it has been for
quite a while, is you now need your ID card, you need a
credit card that matches your ID card, and all of these kind of precautions
as you check into a hotel or motel. Is that not the case?
Was that not the case in two thousand and nine in Ireland? It should
have been, but for some reason he was able to check in without proper
ID and a credit card. And we'll discuss this more later on. But
people have compared this to another case that was on the Netflix version of Unsolved
Mysteries about a woman who checked into a fancy hotel in Norway under the name
Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five, but it turned out the name was fake
and she's never been identified. And people were saying, in that case,
that was nineteen ninety five, and you still needed a credit card to check
into a hotel. So it's another case where they're just inexplicably wondering why didn't
the front desk staff do its job and allow these people to do this?
That is insane. Now do we know for a fact that he didn't have
a fake ID that said Peter Bergman, Uh, not that I know of.
No. Actually he might have, but they haven't really revealed that.
But if he did, he didn't have it on him when he was when
he died. Okay, because I was going to say that would even suggest
even bigger things going on, because it's easy to walk in and say this
is my name if no one's asking for proof of that. We do see
that when people are trying to check in, you know, and no one
know that they're in that hotel, like a famous celebrity, but they're checking
in under their legal name or under a representative's legal name, and then their
name is simply booked under a fictitious name. But here it seems like they
didn't do due diligence to see who Peter actually was. And what's really really
interesting to me is that I'm assuming there is a sketch or a picture of
this individual, and like you said, no one has come forward to say
that looks like our missing family member. Well, not just a sketch,
but CCTV foot like actual images and photos of the real guy what he looked
like, and he still has not been identified. Our story begins in two
thousand and nine in Ross's Point, Ireland, a small seaside village with a
population of just under nine hundred people, which is located in County Sligo next
to the Atlantic Ocean. At around six forty five a m. On the
morning of Tuesday, June sixteenth, a father and son duo came across the
body of a middle aged man who'd been washed up on one of the village's
beaches and was lying face down in the sand. He appeared to be in
his late fifties or early sixties and had closely cropped gray hair and a waterproof
Quarts watch on his left wrist. He was dressed in purple stripes beeto type
swimming trunks with underwear overtop of it at a navy t shirt which was tucked
into them. This prompted the duo to contact the Guardie, which is the
name of Ireland's police force, and when the medical examiner or at the scene,
the victim was officially pronounced dead. Some additional articles of clothing included black
shoes, dark socks, a sleeveless Tommy Hillfiger jumper, a black leather jacket,
a black leather belt, and neatly folded dark navy trousers were found on
a nearby rock and presumably belonged to the victim. Curiously, it turned out
that the labels in every piece of clothing had been cut out. The various
pockets of each piece of victim's clothing contained a number of items, including an
envelope containing one hundred and forty nine euros worth of notes and coins, a
packet of tissue, fifty five milligrams of aspirin, hands of plast sticking plasters
which are adhesive bandages, and a wrap bar of hotel soap. However,
no form of identification for this man could be found anywhere. What's incredibly odd
is that he has this speedo on, meaning that he almost intended to go
or that he was going to jump or do something that involve the water,
but then also had his clothes on over it. And what's in his pockets
doesn't seem to be every day things that you would place in your pocket.
Why take the bar of soap from the hotel? Why have these adhesive bandages?
I mean, yes, the coins and the aspirin are every day things
that you might slip into your pocket for later in the day, but the
others don't seem to really make sense. And the labels being cut out of
his clothes does seem like he's going to this extent of saying, I'm going
to remove things that might link me somewhere or to a purchase. Yeah,
as we're going to talk about, in the days prior to his death,
this man would be disposing of a lot of his personal items, which I
believe because he didn't want anyone to figure out his identity, so he was
getting rid of all the clues. But like you said, some of the
items he did keep with him and still had autumnhen he died, such as
the bandages and the hotel soap, It makes you wonder why did he not
get rid of these items. Why did he keep these particular items around?
The hotel soap really gets me, Like, I could see how you could
have, you know, one hundred and forty nine euros and maybe even bandages,
But what would possess you if you're going out to wrap up a bar
of hotel soap and take it with you, Like, so, where were
you going that you would need this soap? Potentially? I had to giggle
when I heard about it. At first, I'm thinking hotel soap, and
I thought, come on, Ashley, I take everything that's free on the
counter when I leave and then I eventually throw it away. But I think
it's from my grad school days where I had no money, and I'm like,
oh, free soap and shampoo and a summing kid. What is this?
Well, it initially appeared that he had drowned the ocean and washed up
on the beach. The autopsy revealed what the pathologists described as no sign of
quote unquote classical saltwater drowning, and there was no evidence he had been the
victim of foul play. However, it was apparent that the man had been
suffering from some serious health problems, as he was in the advanced stages of
prostate cancer and had bone tumors, so even if he had not died at
this time, he likely only had a few more weeks left to live.
His right kidney was missing, and he showed signs of previously having suffered multiple
heart attacks. The man's teeth were in good condition and showed an extensive history
of dental work, as he had bridging root canals and crowns, as well
as a full gold tooth on the upper back right side of his mouth.
But in spite of his health problems, the toxicology report showed no medication or
pain killers in his system, including aspirin, even though aspirin tablets have been
found among his possessions. This meant he likely would have been experiencing a great
deal of pain at the time of his death. In the end, his
official cause of death was ruled to be acute cardiac arrest BLUs his heart,
so it looks like it was a heart attack or cardiac arrest at the end
of his life. But when he was battling cancer and he has these other
serious health issues and clearly in a state of pain, my first thought was
maybe he was going to complete suicide and he wanted to end this pain.
Cancer is one of the most cruel diseases you can suffer from, and so
that would have made sense. The aspirin, though, does allude to the
idea of was he struggling with a feeling of a heart attack coming on,
or had he had a prediagnosed kind of risk of heart attack, and so
he was taking those aspirin daily to try to prevent that from happening. But
then in the end he actually died of cardiac arrest. Yeah, there is
definitely like ample evidence to suggest that he might have been planning suicide and was
hoping to maybe drown himself by walking into the ocean, But it could just
be a coincidence, maybe that he just happened to suffer a fatal heart attack
at that exact moment when he was planning to end his own life, because
that appeared to be the exact cause of death rather than drowning. It's so
weird, like just everything about it. Cutting off all of your labels so
that nobody can find out who you are. Why would you take such measures
unless you were planning to not want to be traced, And if you're not
wanting to be traced, unless you're running to a certain location. That would
be my thought, too, ash would be that he was attempting to complete
suicide and he didn't want anyone who knew him from his life to find out
what happened to him, or to have access to the body and know what
he did. So it seems very strange, almost eerie that he would be
struck down by a heart attack at that very moment, like you just said,
Robin, when he may have been attempting to drown himself. Also was
really interesting is you have a lot of evidence of who this person is.
His teeth, the fact that there were very unique dental features where he has
the gold tooth, and he has other indications that there's a unique root canal,
there's crowns, there's bridges, and then you have the idea that he
had cancer. So if you're advertising this is the body we found, we
found a man. He had progressed prostate cancer. He had aspurn with him,
perhaps indicating that he was at a high risk of a heart attack,
which is what eventually killed him. These are the dental features that we you
know, we know that this individual had. You would think that someone would
easily say, oh my gosh, that's our dad, that's my brother,
that's my coworker, and for no one, and then you have the CCTV
for no one to have said that, it blows my mind. I get
it might be an international kind of you know, cross countries of origin from
this individual to Ireland, but still you would think that someoneould say that's our
man, we know him. Question for you, Robin, do you know
if they did any radio carbon testing on the teeth or the bones. I
haven't heard that. No. I mean it's possible they did. But if
they, if that's what happened, they never released that information publicly. But
I have seen that in other cases involving unidentified decedents, So I'd be surprised
if they didn't try that here because that would at least give them an idea
of where he grew up and maybe an idea of like a range of places
that he could have lived within the last year or two. Yeah, because
we did a Patreon Minnesota while back about a deceded named little miss Panasofki who
was found murdered in Florida in nineteen seventy one, and they did some carbon
testing to determine that she may have hailed from Greece, So that's the reason
why she's possibly never been identified in the United States. So yeah, that
would be a good idea for them to do on this guy, if they
haven't already. Since the decedent could not be identified and no one came forward
who recognized him, investigators attempted to backtrack his movements, as he frequently showed
up on CCTV footage in the days prior to his death. It turned out
that he first showed up in the area on Friday, June twelfth, when
he arrived at the nearby town of Sligo, located about eight kilometers southeast of
Ross's Point. Prior to that, the man was captured by cameras at the
ulsterbus depot in the city of Darry Oh my god, I love Dairy Girls.
Have I watched it? So good? It's so good? Is that
a show sat in Ireland? Yes, it's so good. Hongyan cheek really
funny, kind of a little raunchy and playful. At the time, he
was wearing glasses and dressed in a black leather jacket, with a small bag
slung over his shoulder and a smaller black bag in his hand. He initially
boarded a bus and asked if it would be traveling to Sligo, and when
he learned it wasn't, he subsequently boarded the correct bus, which left the
depot at four pm. CCTV footage would capture him arriving in Sligo at six
twenty eight pm, and he proceeded to climb into a tax into a taxi
and asked the driver to take him to a cheap hotel. The driver first
took him to a hotel on Connelly Street, which turned out to have no
vacancy, so he was next taken to the Sligo City Hotel on Key Street
at six point fifty two. He rented out rooms seven oh five for three
nights and registered under the name Peter Bergmann. Of course, it would later
turn out that Peter Bergman was a fake name, but that's how we'll refer
to him from now on. Do we have any details about the quality of
this hotel and kind of what their operating standards were, because I know that
one of the issues the police have in law enforcement have here in the US
is that when you were in a little seedier areas and you have a lot
of motels that are very, very inexpensive, they're by the hour. One
of the issues is that they don't follow protocol set for hospitality industries. Right.
They're not checking IDs, they're not getting a proper documentation of people checking
in. They don't pay attention to what ages people are when they're checking in.
So is it possible when he requested that cab driver to take him to
a cheap location that he was taken to an area where they simply if you
paid them, they did not care what protocol they followed. Yeah, that's
a good point, because I haven't heard of the Sligo City Hotel being CD
per se. Like from the photographs I've seen, it doesn't look like a
rundown place, and I haven't heard anything about habit like rough clientele. But
that could be why he selected a cheap hotel because they didn't check identification and
he was able to check in without a credit card as well, which he
probably wouldn't be able to do if he had gone to one of the more
classier, fancier hotels. And like, who knows, maybe he said something
like, oh my gosh, like I've misplaced my wallet, but I have
cash on me and let me just try to find where it is or whatever
he said, and then they were like, okay, well we'll take your
credit card when you leave or if you have any extra charges, and then
you can show us your identification at the point that you find your wallet.
I could see him coming up with some kind of excuse, especially if it
wasn't like he's not staying at Hilton or something like that or four seasons where
they're absolutely going to require your credit card and identification. If it is just
this cheap hotel, might have a staff member who's more likely to make an
exception, especially if it's this older guy, and you're kind of like,
okay, no one's really going to take him, so let's just make an
exception. We'll let him come in. We're likely not going to get caught
for this, and he's paying cash up front, so you know, if
nobody finds out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, the very no
one would find out. But then it turns out this would become the center
of one of the biggest mysteries in Ireland. So I wonder if the clerk
who checked him in wound up keeping their job. The rate was sixty five
euros per night, and Peter Bergman paid for it in cash, but like
we said, he was never asked to provide any identification. When he wrote
his name in the register, he listed his address as eight Stisen fifteen Ving
forty four seventy two. Now Veing just happened to be the German language name
for Vienna, Austria, but the problem is that this address did not exist.
Some sources say that there is no such street as Aint Stetterson in Vienna,
while others state that the address led to a vacant lot. While four
four seven two was meant to be a postal code, it also did not
exist, as Vienna uses a four digit system where all the numbers begin with
one instead of four. Everyone who heard Peter speak described him as having what
sounded like a thick Austrian or perhaps German accent, and he spoke English very
well. After spending the night at the hotel, Peter would be captured visiting
a nearby post office at ten forty nine am on the morning of Saturday,
June the thirteenth. He would purchase ten eighty two cent stamps and was also
given air mail stickers. But while it was never conclusively determined if Peter mailed
any letters, these stamps were not found among his possessions after he died.
That's so bizarre. Are air mail stickers? Are those the ones where you
play them on the box and it gives directions like it's fragile packaging or it's
I mean, what is an air mail sticker actually used for? Uh,
I'll have to look at U unless jewels, do you know. I thought
that it would be something that the company who's shipping it would put on like
a parcel or something like that. Right, Like, I thought if you're
going to be sending something through FedEx and they're sending something in an airplane,
they would slap that on. I didn't know you as the sender would do
that, but I really don't know. Yeah, I think it's kind of
thing the expedite if you need to send it like somewhere to another country or
something like. They're not required for international postage, but it's sometimes helpful to
put them on any envelopes and packages you receive. Yeah, like extra directions,
maybe extra guidance for the postage service. That's really interesting that all of
a sudden you have this man who's in a foreign country. He's using information
that's not accurate. Like the like the postal code, the street may not
even be real, the address surely doesn't exist except for possibly a vacant lot.
And then we know that he's preparing to try to send mail potentially out
of the country. It's almost as if is he writing letters to family members.
But again, if he was, and he mount those prior to this
day that he's enters the water, somehow, wouldn't we know wouldn't people say
I got a letter from my deceased brother for my deceased cousin and he had
cancer and took his own life. Like I just feel like if anything had
gone out that wasn't let's say just work related, wouldn't that guide people to
who this individual was. Who knows how much direction he would have given within
those letters, and how cryptic or vague he could have been. And say
they lived in like just Switzerland for example, Maybe they've never heard of Peter
Bergmann or heard of this case, and so they just think that they're getting
these letters from their loved one and they're saying, you know, I'm moving
away, I'm never going to see you again. Who knows what they could
have potentially said, But I think you're absolutely right ash that he likely was
sending the letters to somebody, because why else would you get these stamps,
And if they weren't found on his person when he died, and they weren't
with his belongings, it seems likely that perhaps he already did mail those letters.
But what did they say and did they provide any sort of clue or
direction to where he may have been ending his own life. It could have
just been I'm ceasing communication with you. We don't really know. If his
intention was to end his own life, and he went so far as to
cut his labels off his clothing so that he wasn't identified, he might have
been very cryptic in what he was saying to them, essentially some kind of
cloaked version of don't look for me. During his three night stay at the
hotel, Peter mostly kept to himself, but during that time period he would
be captured on CCTV exiting the hotel no less than thirteen times. On each
occasion, he would be shown carrying a purple plastic bag which appeared to contain
items, but he was not carrying the bag whenever he returned. It was
unclear if Peter might have folded the same empty bag and placed it in one
of his pockets, or if he just kept a large collection of purple bags
inside his room. Investigators theorized that Peter may have been using the bags to
dispose of all of his personal belongings in order to hide all potential clues to
his identity. However, a thorough check of all CCTV footage in Slago failed
to capture Peter getting rid of any items, and even though a number of
the local dumps, rubbish bins, and public areas were searched, they failed
to turn up anything which could be traced back to him. Peter's movements almost
seemed to indicate that he was aware of all the security cameras blind spots and
made the calculated decision to avoid them whenever he disposed of his belongings. Okay,
so this is still possible. That changes my idea a little bit.
You're saying that it almost was like he was aware of where these cameras were
and was going to these great links to kind of hide who he was.
Is it possible that with the prostate cancer, with potentially being near the end
of his life and having let's say, opioids or any kind of medication for
the cancer, or again just kind of having the chemical imbalances going on due
to the cancer and this heart issue. Could he have been suffering from delirium
or kind of a state of almost near dementia caused by the cancer medication or
by this near end of his life that made him think someone was after him,
which is why he had to go to these great links. I think
it's possible. I think the cancer can have a huge impact on your mental
health and just on you on all of your different hormones and your neurology.
Every single aspect of your brain is going to be affected, not specifically by
the cancer, but likely by whatever medication he was taking, whether it was
chemo or radiation, and then just this feeling of impending doom. Their rates
of the incidence of depression and anxiety in people with cancer is far higher than
the general population. So the idea that he could have even been in a
state, like you said, of psychosis, that is possible because I can't
imagine when you're facing death and you know that that is the end, how
difficult that would be to grapple with. And we don't know his interpersonal relationships
or his support network so I don't think that we could discount the possibility that
he was having some kind of mental health crisis. That is true because we've
talked about how we think it's a calculated attempt to get rid of his identity,
to get rid of all clues to his identity, so that no one
would know who he was when he died. But if he was not in
the right frame of mind, it could be. An alternate explanation is that
he just thought people racked for him, like he was just paranoid, because
the cancer was just causing some mental health issues, so everything in his own
mind made sense to him, even though maybe didn't make any sense to the
outside world. So on Sunday, June the fourteenth, Peter left the hotel
between eleven and eleven thirty am and climbed into a taxi cab. According to
the driver, Peter pulled out a map and asked him to recommend a quiet
beach where he could go for a swim. After he recommended Ross's Point,
the driver took him to the two beaches which were located there. When they
arrived, Peter only climbed out of the taxi for a few moments to look
at the area before he got back in and asked the driver to take him
to the Sligo bus station. During the ride, Peter asked how often buses
traveled to that beach, and he also mentioned that he was from Austria.
After Peter was dropped at the bus station, he later returned to the hotel
and requested a late checkout the following morning. At one oh six pm on
Monday, June the fifteenth, Peter finally checked out and left. He was
described as wearing a black leather jacket, longsleeved pale blue shirt, a sleeve
list Tommy Hill figure jumper, and dark trousers. Even though most of these
articles of clothing were later found on the beach, the long sleeved blue shirt
was never recovered. Peter was also seen carrying the same shoulder bag and handheld
bag he had with them when he arrived in Sligo, as well as a
purple plastic bag. When he left the hotel, Peter was captured on CCTV
walking down Quay Street to the Quayside Shopping Center, where, for unknown reasons,
he waited in the doorway for several minutes before walking away again. At
one sixteen pm, I am a little concerned because remember he does have his
speed out and underwear on underneath of these clothes when he's discovered, and we
do find these other articles of clothing around. But that day before, when
he's taken to the beach just very temporarily, just very quickly, what could
that have been for. Was he discarding something and the water? Was he
scoping out where he might try to go the next day? And how far
were those locations from where his body was actually discovered. I think he was
scouting the location, because I don't think he got out of the taxi long
enough to dispose of anything. I think if he was planning suicide, that
maybe says, I want to find a nice beach, and this looks like
a nice place where I can come back tomorrow and then possibly walk into the
water to take my own life. So yeah, he was definitely planning something,
but we'll just never really know why he chose that particular beach. Maybe
I don't know if he had any past familiarity with it, or maybe he
just thought this looks like a nice place. I'll be at peace here when
I die. At one thirty two pm, Peter was shown arriving at the
Sligo bus station, where he stopped at a small cafe in order to cappuccino
and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Curiously, by this point, Peter
was only carrying the purple plastic bag and the black shoulder bag, but the
smaller black bag he was seen holding at the hotel was no longer in his
possession and has never been found. After he sat down at the table to
eat, Peter pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and wrote something
down on it before he proceeded to tear it up and toss it into a
nearby rubbish bin. When he finished eating, Peter soon asked an employee about
the next bus to Ross's Point, and he proceeded to purchase a one way
ticket before the bus left at to forty pm. Starting at four that afternoon,
no less than sixteen witnesses would recall seeing Peter at the same beach he'd
visited in Ross's Point the previous day. These sightings would be spread out over
the course of nearly eight hours, and Peter was seen walking and pacing along
the beach. Some of the witnesses reported him standing in the water in his
bare feet with his trousers rolled up to his knees, and at various points
he was seen with a black bag strapped over his shoulder. The lask and
Firm sighting was from a woman who saw him at eleven fifty pm and said
he was still carrying the purple plastic bag and had his glasses on at the
time. The high tide was scheduled to arrive on the beach within the next
half an hour, and by the following morning, Peter's dead body would be
discovered. In spite of all the articles of clothing and personal items he left
behind on the beach, the black shoulder bag, the purple plastic bag,
and Peter's glasses could not be found anywhere. This is wild, so okay,
there's a lot of people who watch him for hours upon hours, or
at least many people who saw him over the course of these hours pacing the
beach. So part of me feels heartbroken for him that if he was trying
to take his own life, that he's almost I mean, obviously it's daytime,
so he doesn't want to do anything to arouse suspicion, but it's almost
like trying to mentally prepare himself for that. But then there's still an opportunity
or a bizarre chance that something happened to him, Like I mean, can
I know a heart attack and cardiac arrest are different, but is it possible
that an assault could cause him to go into cardiac arrest? He wasn't in
good health anyway. Is it possible that being scared or overwhelmed by someone who
arrived at the beach could have made him have that attack? I guess you
can't rule that out. I mean, the investigator said that there were no
obvious signs of foul play, but if it's just an incident where someone like
yells at him or something or touches him and doesn't leave any noticeable bruises or
marks, it could be a case where they just indirectly caused his heart to
fail and caused him to die from cardiac arrest, which I don't know if
that would technically count as a homicide, But I guess you can't discount the
idea that there was another person present when Peter died, And who knows,
maybe they could have even stolen some of these items that were missing and never
accounted for. Of course, the investigation and failed to uncover any passports or
records for anyone under the name Peter Bergmann which matched this man's age or description
in Europe, North America or South America. While as DNA and fingerprints were
obtained and circulated among various agencies, no match could be found. When the
man known only as Peter Bergmann could not be identified, he was buried in
an unmarked grave in Sligo Town Cemetery in September of two thousand and nine.
This plot had specifically been purchased to very unclaimed bodies, and since it could
hold up to three people, Peter currently has another unidentified decedent buried alongside him.
In twenty thirteen, this story became the subject of a nineteen minute documentary
titled The Last Days of Peter Bergmann, which was screened at the twenty fourteen
Sundance Film Festival and also won the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the twenty
fourteen Melbourne International Film Festival. The director Kieran Cassidy has speculated that Peter may
have traveled to the beach at Ross's Point in hopes of being washed away into
the Atlantic Ocean, stating Bergmann must have wanted to disappear forever into the Atlantic.
But alas for him, the ocean rejected his body and now he lies
in an unmarked grave in Sligo end quote. In most sources I found for
this case, there was no mention of how DNA profiling was being utilized to
identify Peter. But about a month after my original trail went cold episode came
out, the Sligo detectives currently investigating this case released this statement quote, we
don't send DNA to ancestry or other sites. Well, it might advance an
area where Peter might have come from, it doesn't advance his identification end quote.
This story has ballooned into one of Ireland's biggest mysteries of the modern era,
and after nearly fifteen years, the true identity of the middle aged man
known only as Peter Bergmann remains unknown. So I guess you could say the
path went Chiley. Can we all just go back to what this detective says
that while it might advance the area where Peter might have come from, it
does not advance his identification. Today it does, right, We are not
just sending in DNA to say this is my country of origin or this is
where I'm from. We know that genetic genealogy can actually help us link to
close descendants of whoever Peter Bergman actually was. And so while we used to
not be able to have those kinds of links, the advancements have occurred so
quickly and been used for criminal cases over the last several years. Why can't
they send his DNA? And Now, I understand if this is not a
priority case because you have a lot of active cases going on, you have
a lot of cold cases with issues that need to be handled through DNA analysis
and it's expensive, but to say that you can't is problematic to me.
To say we won't given the circumstances, we won't because this is not necessarily
an urgent case. Fine, but I don't think that's a factual statement given
what we know today about potential DNA and genetic genealogy. Mom, I've literally
found her long lost sister on ancestry dot com. That's unbelievable. I guess
it would depend on the laws for certain countries, because your mom's from Canada,
right, Yeah, her sister's in the US. Okay. Because I
haven't been able to find any confirmation on this, any specific details, but
I get the impression that laws for a lot of these genealogy websites are different
in other countries in Europe, and that's why we've only used genetic genealogy to
solve cases in the United States in Canada. So I don't it sounds kind
of like a bureaucratic situation where maybe you just don't have the same rights over
there where, where people who have submitted their DNA to websites like Ancestry,
they just maybe in Europe have not consented to allow their DNA to be used
in some sort of police investigation. Because as far as I can tell,
genetic genealogy is still not being used as a tool in criminal investigations outside North
America. So if you're a true crime follower, you'll probably know that the
last six years have been a pretty amazing time when it comes to identifying John
and Jane does. There's so many cases involving decedents who have remained unidentified for
years, if not decades, but organizations such as the DNA dough Project and
Authorm Incorporated have been able to use such methods as genetic genealogy to track down
these decedans' biological relatives and figure out who they are. In many of these
cases, the public only had an idea of what the decedan looked like through
computer generated composite sketches. But what makes the story of Peter Bergmann stand out
is that he was captured on CCTV several times prior to his death, so
we know what he actually looked like. These images are easily available for viewing
online, yet no one has ever come forward to say that they recognize this
man. You may have already noticed that Peter's story has a number of similarities
to some pretty famous cases involving unidentified decedents. For instance, there's the Tomom's
shoodecase aka the mystery of the Somerton Man, involving an unidentified middle aged male
who was found dead on the Summrton Park Beach in Australia in nineteen forty eight.
Much like Peter Bergman, all of the labels in the Summerton Man's clothing
were removed and it seemed like he had gone to great lengths to conceal his
identity. But during the summer of twenty twenty two, it was announced that
based on genetic genealogy, the Somerton Man had likely been identified as an electrical
engineer named Charles Carl Webb. The details of Webb's death are still not entirely
clear, but he had a history of serious mental health issues, including one
previous suicide attempt. Since Webb's wife had left the abuse of marriage and he
lost four close relatives over the course of seven years, it's been theorized that
his death could have been a suicide. And who is to say that Peter
Bergmann couldn't have had a similar backstory exactly? And what else was he struggling
with where he has this cancer diagnosis. It's likelihoend his life. He could
very well all have a problematic family life or feel as though he's become a
burden on his family and feels a need to leave or to get out with
dignity, and so he's trying to, like they said, go out with
the Atlantic. But again, this is my case in point. We have
cases that are decades and decades old where we have an unidentified individual and through
this genetic genealogy we're able to identify who they are. And so my prayer
is that the databases and DNA technology in European countries and in Ireland is growing
and it's one of those things that when it becomes more accessible, that it
is used in a case just like Peters. That's what we're finding out these
that's the beauty of these databases. And so we know people over in Ireland
and Europe are doing the tests. Are they being used in criminal justice cases
or in these kind of unknown cases? Possibly not. But my prayer is,
because we know it works, why wouldn't law enforcement agencies start turning to
this as a standard practice. I mean, they've identified someone from who died
in nineteen forty eight because of genetic genealogy. Like many people thought that the
Somerton Man was going to be one of history's truly unsolvable mysteries that people like
talked about for decades. Yet here we are and they've been able to figure
out who this guy was, so anything is possible. Peter's story is also
reminiscent of two other cases involving individuals who checked into hotels under false names before
they turned up dead. If you've watched the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix,
you're probably familiar with the story of an unidentified woman who checked into the Uzza
Plaza hotel in Norway under the name Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five. Like
Peter, she was never asked to provide any identification and booked the room for
three nights, and she would eventually be found dead on her bed after an
apparent self inflicted gunshot wound. In both the Somerton Man and Jennifer Fairgate came,
one of the most prominent theories is that they were spies, So I
suppose it's not surprising that this theory has also been presented for Peter Bergman as
well. The other famous case that we were referring to took place in September
two thousand and one and involved a young man who checked into a motel in
Amanda Park, Washington, under the false name Lyle Stevick, before he subsequently
hanged himself in the closet. In May twenty eighteen, it was announced that
the DNA dough Project had used genetic genealogy to track down Lyle's biological family,
but in the interest of privacy, all details about his true identity and backstory
have been kept secret from the public. It's been theorized that Lyle Stevick took
steps to ensure his family never found out what happened to him. And it's
possible that Peter Bergmann may have done the same thing. There don't seem to
be many reasons you wouldn't use your legal name to chuck into a hotel either.
I think you would be having a concern that somebody was after you or
dangerous, or it could be looking for you, like a domestic violent situation,
or even something bigger like a spy situation, or you have a debt
to handle and you haven't, So those kinds of issues could explain why you
would be using a false name. If you're incredibly famous, I could see
hiding under a false name so that the publicity and the notoriety's not there.
But I could also see this situation where someone says, I need to leave.
I am coming and taking this trip to complete suicide and to end my
life, and therefore I don't want my family to necessarily know that. There's
a lot of shame that people carry when they're suffering with depression like that,
or they want to end their life and their famili's fighting so hard for them
to live, especially through a cancer treatment and things like that. So I
could very well see Peter either having that kind of delirium and worry and being
on this trip and kind of not necessarily being in his right mind, or
I could also see him saying, I have a very clear plan, I
know what I want to do, but I don't want to hurt the people
who care about me, and I'm going to see if I can lead them
to believe that I've left and that I can in my life and let the
pain go away. Because we know he was suffering significantly, there just doesn't
seem to be many other options out there. I mean, there is always
a circumstance that he was being followed or watched or wanted, but the cardiac
arrest makes it seem as though he really was severely ill and he knew that,
and he knew his life was coming towards an end, and therefore it's
one of these things that makes it lean towards that suicide is the most probable
instance here. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I guess the big unsolved
mystery is why he would choose this particular town in Ireland in order to end
his life, because it was obviously he was not from the area, so
I just always wondered was he there in the past, and did he like
this place? And this is why he chose this particular area for suicide.
But until he's identified, we will probably never know, so I suppose we
need to address the question about whether or not Peter should be identified. In
June of twenty nineteen, The Irish Times released a three part podcast about this
case titled Atlantic The Unsolved Mystery of Peter Bergmann, hosted by journalist Rosita Boland.
At one point, Boland did discuss the potential ethical issues of trying to
uncover Peter's identity. If Peter took all these steps to ensure he could not
be identified, should everyone respect his wishes and let him rest in peace.
It would be one thing if foul play had taken place and a homicide investigation
was required, but there are cases in which decedents have died by suicide and
it seemed apparent that they just wanted to be left alone and forgotten about.
However, I've always personally held the belief that no matter what their final wishes
may have been, there still needs to be an investigation to find out where
they were. I mentioned this particular case on our podcast so many times that
I must sound like a broken record, but I must want, I must
once again harkened back to the Gail Delano case, which has always been a
serious influence on my opinion about stories like this. As a quick refresher,
Gail Delano vanished from her hometown in Maine, and her disappearance would be featured
on Unsolved Mysteries and Toil, a medical examiner who watched this show, recognized
Gail as a Jane Doe, whom he had found dead inside a hotel room
in Mobile, Alabama, two years earlier for reasons that are known only to
her. Gail had decided to travel there and register at the hotel under a
false name before she overdosed. It's possible she did not want her relatives to
ever find out what happened to her. And while it's true that some of
these other decedents might have been estranged from their own families, that was definitely
not the case with Gail. You could clearly tell that her family was suffering
during their Unsolved Mysteries interviews, and it would have been a major tragedy if
Gail had remained a missing person and they had to keep living with the uncertainty
for the rest of their lives. Well, it's possible that Peter Bergen was
a complete loaner with no family or friends. He may also have loved ones
out there somewhere who spent the past fifteen years not knowing what happened to him.
For this reason, I believe there is an obligation to keep seeking out
his true identity. Now, what separates Peter's story from the other cases we've
discussed is that the autopsy showed he was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer.
So no matter what it seemed like, he was not going to live
much longer than a couple more weeks. It sounds like he wanted to spend
some time in County Sligo before ending his life on his own terms. But
the big mystery is where did he come from and why did he choose his
particular location. That is a really powerful question. I actually never thought of
it from that perspective of do you let someone rest in peace and kind of
honor what it seems their wishes were. But I'm with you, Robin,
from all of the families I've worked with, and all of the professionals and
grief advocates and victim advocates. When you talk to families, they will consistently
tell you the only thing worse than what happened to my love when via homicide,
via an attack the death right would be not knowing having a missing person.
They'll tell you that, you know, I want to know the details.
I want to know what happened, because when I don't, I fill
it in myself. Right, these families have a obsession almost with wondering what
happened when you don't have an answer, than every answer is a possibility.
And so I think the kind of over overwhelming questioning you would be doing,
the way that you would just want to know why and what and how,
that you would actually have nightmaric situations in your head that you would be playing
constantly. I have to know what happened to my child. I have to
know what happened to my husband. I have to know where their body is.
Those are really important questions for someone who's grieving. And when you leave
and you disappear, the grief is significant, and the fear and the trauma
and the way that I, you know, I hypothesize what happened to you
is often far worse than the really grim, dark reality that these families find
out eventually. They want to know so to me, when I hear the
worst case scenario would be if our child was missing, the worst case scenario
would be if my husband was missing and they hadn't found his body, I
think the family needs to be informed. Speaking of broken records, I will
bring up Julia Murray again, and I know, just like Gail Delano has
been brought up a lot. I often use Julia Murray as an example,
but I just remember when she spoken to Ashley and I and she talked about
her open ended trauma of not knowing where Mora was. And in a situation
where you have somebody who wants to end their own life and they're taking all
these measures to avoid being identified, you have to ask the question of are
they in their right mental state at that point in time to make a decision
such as that that has such far reaching implications and consequences for their loved ones.
If they were at their very best mental health wise, would they make
that decision for themselves at the end? And I think the answer is typically
no. So I'm in agreement with both of you and that I do understand
when somebody ends their own life and you know that maybe there could be a
level of respect for their wishes, but I think in an overwhelming number of
circumstances, unless they're trying to escape an abusive partner or something like that,
or a situation where they were being harmed in some way, I do think
the family has the right to know because it is something that they will carry
with them forever, and at least that would provide a resolution. I agree,
And I think when suicide becomes an option, it's that life is no
longer a viable outcome for you, and a lot of times these individuals feel
that they are a burden on the people around them, that they've caused significant
distress that it cannot be healed now for Peter, if the mission really was
suicide. I also think when a fatal illness is staring you down, I
think there's been many people who have said, I want to go out on
my own terms with dignity, where I still have my faculties about me,
where I still am able to stand, I'm able to go to the restroom
by myself, I'm able to do these things, and I want to die
with dignity. So I think that in this case is probably more the case
if he was completing suicide. But you also hear of people who say,
I just I'm too much on my family, I'm hurting them, I'm a
burden. This problem is so big, I can't get over it. And
so, like you said, Jules, when you actually talk to family members
after the death of a loved one via suicide, that issue was not something
we couldn't overcome. Warakness was not something we couldn't bring light to. Right,
They're not a burden to me. Whether it's medical issues, whether it's
their mental health, whether it's something they've done to our family. It's a
problem that we could have overcome had I known, or it's something I would
have gotten help had I known, or there's someone in their life that needed
them. And so I think for Peter it might have been more medical based
and dying with dignity, which is not always allowed. You know, we
have euthanasia laws, and some states and some countries do allow for people to
choose when they're facing a disease that's going to end and death. But if
Peter didn't have that option, or if his family didn't wanted to take that
option, this seemed to be a way that he could go out with dignity.
I still think his family needed to know, so I think this would
be a good time to bring it into part one. But join us next
week as we present part two of our series about the death of Peter Bergmann.
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trailment
Cold? Patreon, Yes, I don't call. Patreon has been around for
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