Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
unexplained death of Rodney Mars Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on
what we talked about in our previous episode, Well, this is the first
case you've ever covered from Antarctica. It takes place at the South Pole,
at the Amundson Scott South Pole Station, which is a research station where about
fifty people go to work a year round and it'll work so that during the
summer season it's six months of straight daylight, followed by the winter season which
is six months of straight darkness. And one of the people who loved working
there, this was his second stint there was Rodney Marx, who was an
Australian astrophysicist. He showed up there during the nineteen ninety nine was planning to
stay there for a whole year, and he also got engaged to a woman
who was stationed there named Sonia Walter, and they were planning to get married
after they made it back to the mainland. But one point during his stint
in May of two thousand, Rodney started to become very ill and over the
course, at thirty six hours his condition was worsen until he suddenly died.
They were not able to figure out his cause of death. At first,
they attributed to natural causes, but after a Rodney's body was flown back to
the mainland about six months later and he was given an autopsy, they discovered
that his exact cause of death was methanol poisoning. But of course, in
so much time had passed and all the people at the station had gone their
separate ways. And it was also a jurisdictional nightmare because the New Zealand police
wanted to do the investigation, but a lot of the people who were stationed
there were American and it was tough to decide who act she had jurisdiction in
Antarctica. So they were unable to figure out the circumstances of how Rodney may
have died. Could it have been an accident, could have been ingested methanol
by mistake by drinking tainted liquor, or was it an intentional homicide where someone
poisoned one of his drinks and that's how he died. But no one has
ever been named as a suspect or person of interest. No one has ever
been named as having a personal grudge against Rodney or a motive to murder him.
So to this day of this death is technically still unexplained and they've been
unable to determine if it was a homicide or an accidental death. So before
we start talking anymore about Rodney Marx's case, I want to share a story
about another crazy incident which occurred at the Emmonson Scott South Hole Station. In
our last episode, we mentioned that during the winter months, the weather is
so cold that it is nearly impossible for a plane to land there. Well,
just over a year before Rodney's death, a woman named doctor Jerry Nielsen
was assigned to serve as the physician at the station, but during the winter
season, she discovered a lump in her breasts. Due to the weather,
there was no way she could possibly be evacuated for months, so doctor Nielsen
was forced to perform a biopsy on herself and self treat her own cancer,
which involves self administering chemotherapy. The National Science Foundation even sent a military plane
to fly over the base and air drops some medical supplies for her treatment because
they cannot safely land and pick her up. But thankfully, once they're able
to evacuate Nielsen and transport her back to the United States for the proper medical
attention. Her cancer went into remission. Unbelievable. One Just what a hero
is she where she's saying, like, listen, I will get medical care,
and if i can't get it from somebody else, I'm going to have
to trust myself enough to try to save my own life. Like that alone
is one of the most epic and motivating and inspirational stories I've ever heard in
my life. It is tragic that you don't have a team setup like we
talked about on episode, where people are accounted for, provided for, and
have means to rarely needed but important kind of access to high end medical care
and the ability to get help when they need it. For her, thank
god, by the time she's able to be transported out, she is able
to get the necessary care and go into remission, because that could have gone
a very very different direction. Yeah, we knew that this part of the
story was going to get the strongest reaction out of you, even though it's
not directly tied to Rodney Marx's case. We just had to mention it because
it is so epic. Oh, it's crazy. I mean, you go
there and you really are. You're sacrificing so much of your life. It's
an amazing opportunity for someone's career, but you're sacrificing so much for the love
of science. And then you get there and you're not provided for the way
that you should be. It's a slap in the face with an organization that
has so much funding and so much money, it needs to really focus on
protecting those people who are doing their work well. Speaking of Raytheon Technologies,
here is another story. So we have one more true crime story to share,
and this one was chronicled by the late great true crime writer and Rule
in one of her chapters of her twenty twelve book Lying in Wait and Rules
Crime Files. It involves a sixty one year old man named Robert Alan Baker,
who beat and strangled his wife, Kathy Baker, to death in Greenback,
Washington, in June of twenty twelve and wound up receiving a sentence of
fifty two years in prison. While what's interesting is that Baker worked as a
defense contractor at the Raytheon Technologies Corporation, and, much like Rodney Marx and
Sonia Walter, his relationship with his wife began while they were working together at
the Aminston Scott South Pole station. At the end of her chapter about this
case and Rule actually made reference to Rodney Marx and while she did not know
if Baker knew Rodney or was stationed at the South Pole with him, she
hoped him investigators would look into a potential connection, while upon further research,
it turns out that Baker did not start working at Raytheon until two thousand and
one, one year after Rodney's death, so I think we can safely rule
him out. The main reason we made mention of this story is because there
was some controversy over the fact that Baker was a convicted sex offender who had
previously spent time in prison from molesting an underage relative, so Raytheon never should
have hired him in the first place, let alone send him off to an
isolated location in Antarctica to meet his future wife. This is why it could
have proved very useful for Raytheon and the National Science Foundation to have turned over
all their personnel files to the New Zealand Police for investigation, because who knows
if Rodney may have spent the winter with someone with a checkered history who was
capable of murdering him. Yeah, exactly. I mean, here's the thing
where when you don't do the diligent research there and you have these ideas that
you are again and putting people at risk, it's crazy to me. Right,
this guy Baker is a convicted sex offender who was spending time in prison
for molesting an underage relative. And so when you look at the fact that
these kinds of businesses and corporations, if their primary interest is who can make
us the most money, who can contribute to us the most, and they
don't look at risk they pose to not only the company, but also to
the people around them, it's ridiculous. It's motivated for money and not the
protection of who they serve and the people that serve alongside them. Yeah,
they're probably be thinking to their selves, well, we're not going to find
too many people who are willing to spend an entire year in Antarctica, so
we might have slim pickings. So of course they're going to hire a guy.
And it's unclear if they knew if Baker had was a convicted sex offender
and had this history, but even if they did, they might have felt,
well, we can't find too many other people to staff the place,
so let's send them down there and take our chances. I really and truly
hope that they just did know and they didn't willingly send a sex offender onto
a research base where basically nobody can access them for six months of the year.
That is a terrifying thought. So let's face it, if you wanted
to commit the perfect murder, the South Pole during the winter season would be
an ideal time and place to do so, because it could be months before
law enforcement showed up to conduct a proper investigation. Now, in Rodney's case,
his death was initially attributed to natural causes, but you might be wondering
how they would handle things if a violent crime did take place. Well.
A situation like this occurred at Antarctica's McMurdo Station in nineteen ninety six after an
incident where an American cook at the facility attacked an American coworker with a hammer,
though thankfully the victim survived, the McMurdo station manager was assigned to be
a special Deputy US Marshal with training and evidence protection, so he had the
power to arrest any Americans who committed crimes. There after the attack, you
had the cook confined to a hut until FBI agents were able to arrive at
the base and take the cook into custody. The advantageous part of the situation
is that it's unlikely that can find perpetrator would ever attempt to make an escape
because well, where would they go? Well exactly, That's exactly what I
was wondering earlier on when we were talking about you know, you have people
with a risky background that are hired, and not only do they have this
kind of isolated world to operate in, but what would you do if they
had known that Rodney had been murdered on in that lab? There's only fifty
people there. Is there a cell designed to hold somebody suspective of abuse or
perpetrating crime in the lab with fifty people? Is there really likely a large
security force who can supervise and monitor and care for someone who's in custody in
that research lab? Like, I just wonder what would be the protocol when
you have such a small functioning society, like fifty people for months that don't
have any outside access. How do you handle people like that? I'm actually
surprised that Agatha Christie has never attempted to make a story about this, like
a murder mystery at the Antarctica. I'd love to see like herk gul Perot
trying to parachute there and to like solve the murder because they can't get these
people out. Maybe somebody should make a movie about this. It sounds like
a great idea. You know, it's funny. Earlier on I almost made
it Agatha Christie comment too, because it's exactly what it reminded me of.
When Ashley was talking about the doctor not knowing and going into the doctor's office.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this is just like an Agatha Christie
novel, except for we don't know all of the characters that are there,
except for you know, the doctor. We know, but it is such
a fascinating story and it would make an excellent movie. You're right, Robin.
Now, like the Aminston Scott south Pole station, the McMurdo station is
located in the Ross Dependency region, which is under New Zealand claim. But
the crime we just mentioned was a clear cut case of one American violently attacking
another American, so there was no ambiguity about handling jurisdiction over to the American
authorities. But Rodney Mark's case is a lot more complicated because he was an
Australian citizen and no one could even be certain if a crime had taken place
at all. Well, it doesn't sound like there were any potential suspects.
I'm sure that there would be a ton of legal complications if it turned out
an American was responsible for his death. There were forty nine other people working
at the Aminston Scott station at the time Rodney died, so if foul play
did take place, there's your entire pool of suspects. Theoretically, even if
the higher ups of the station had their suspicions that Rodney's death was foul play,
I can kind of see why they might be compelled to stay quiet about
it and classify his death as natural causes. I mean, if it turned
out that someone intentionally poisoned Rodney by slipping methanol into one of his drinks,
can you imagine in the panic that might have ensued With no way in or
out of the South Pole for months. This would mean that everyone was trapped
there with a murderer, and without knowing that person's identity. The paranoia would
have been sky high. It's definitely not uncommon for people to go stir crazy
will spending long periods of time at an isolated location. So I'm sure an
unsold homicide would have only exacerbated that. Oh absolutely, you know that if
they had been able to identify. Listen, we have a homicide and something
like a poisoning. There is not that direct contact with a victim, so
there's not a presence of forensic science left there. There's very easy ways to
avert an eyewitness knowing what you're doing, and so it becomes a game of
clue where it's forty nine people looking at each other and saying, it's one
of us in this room. It's one of us in this lab that actually
is responsible for the death of this individual, and now none of us are
safe because we don't know who it is. I'm that's the horror movie right
there. That's the murder novel where you gather fifty people one's dead from a
poisoning that we knows a homicide, and all of a sudden, everyone gathered
to learn this information looks at their neighbor and it's like, are you the
killer? And now how do we function when we're trapped here, when we
don't have any idea of what could have occurred, especially if it was poisoning
in his drinks, Like no one would want to drink anything at all during
that time period. They'd have to be like extra cautious and make sure that
you only open your own bottles and stuff like that, because I cannot imagine
the steps to ensure that something like this would happen not happen over the next
few months without any law enforcement intervention. Yeah, that food, everything you
know. You would wonder is it tainted, Is it possible that I'm going
to be next? Or do they escalate their acts and not poison next time?
Do they do something that's more personal to see if they can get away
with that. So all of those things would be going through your head.
You'd have to wonder if it would turn into like this Lord of the Flies
type situation if it was found out that there was a murder because you don't
have any law enforcement intervention. You don't have any legal intervention. It's basically
like you're all stuck in this place and it's so isolated, and you're trying
to protect yourself and your fellow humans. So if you believe that somebody who
was responsible the lengths or the depths that something could go to, the potential
for people to get hurt in that situation would be almost catastrophic. So let's
start talking about Rodney himself. It's interesting how when you look at photos of
Rodney online, he's not someone you would visualize being a brilliant scientist, as
one particular photo shows him with long, purple dreadlocked hair while he's dressed in
a Sonic Youth T shirt. And of course he performed in a heavy metal
band at the base in his spare time. But it sounds like he was
very good at his job and had been doing excellent work on this project before
his untimely death. While accounts, Rodney was a very social, likable guy,
and even though one of his colleagues described him as having a dry sense
of humor which could sometimes rub people the wrong way, he had such an
affable personality that it was impossible for anyone to ever stay mad at him.
In other words, it doesn't appear like he made any enemies who stood out
as having a motive to murder him. The one theory which has been pretty
much completely discounted is Rodney's death being a suicide, as he showed no signs
of depression and really seemed to be enjoying his work. He had also just
fallen in love with one of the women he was stationed with, Sonya Walter,
so much so that they were actually planning to get married once they returned
to the mainland. While the isolation of spending one year at a remote Antarctic
location can definitely lead to depression and mental health issues for some people, Rodney
had already gone through this experience once before and seemed to enjoy it so much
that he signed up to do it again. Of Course, as we reiterated
on this podcast many times before, just because a person is not show any
outward signs of being depressed or unhappy does not necessarily mean that they're not feeling
suicidal on the inside. But I think that Rodney's actions prior to his death
would rule out that possibility. I mean, for starters, drinking methanol is
an unnecessarily protracted way to die, as it sounds like Rodney went through a
lot of agony during the last thirty six hours of his life. And not
to sound flippant, but if someone's stationed at the South Pole was feeling suicidal,
all they'd have to do is step outside without the proper protective gearon,
and everything would be over pretty quickly. I think the fact that Rodney kept
visiting the Basis medical facility for treatment shows that he had no intention of suicide.
Even if he decided to end things but then changed his mind. I'm
sure Rodney would have told the doctore in just a methanol to increase the chances
of saving his life. Oh, I think absolutely. And when I think
about what could motivate somebody else to hurt him, right, I do not
think that Rodney intended to hurt himself. I also think he was in a
place where if he had made a bad decision or consumed something to see if
he could get a better high, or you know, get drunk quicker.
I think given his pain and seeking medical care, he would have told the
doctor. But I do wonder who else was on that base who would have
a reason to feel threatened by him. Yes, he was a likable guy,
but he's also brilliant. He wouldn't have been there if he wasn't,
And you know a lot of those are grant funded positions and esteemed selected positions.
Is there someone who feels threatened by him, feels like he might be
discovering something at a higher level than they are, or is it related to
his love interest that's on the base? Is someone resentful of that? Is
someone also interested in her? Could someone have been interested in him and they
didn't have an opportunity. There's other reasons that someone could look at an individual
like Rodney and say, in these short months, I've developed a hatred for
him via competition, either romantically or professionally, And you could see somebody having
that motivation when you couple that with I remember reading that the base at this
time, like we know that Rodney was a heavy drinker, but that there
was a lot of heavy drinking going on in general, and that alcohol was
provided to them. Did you hear that, Robin, Oh, yeah,
definitely. Like they've always said that alcohol is essential to be able to stay
there for like six months in the winter darkness. You need alcohol to get
through it. And I'm sure some people would have developed genuine alcohol problems.
And when you add somebody having dry sense of humor onto that equation, there
could be any number of motivations somebody could have felt, like you know,
he insulted them or wronged them in some way, or like Ashley said,
they could have been jealous of his brilliance or of his fiance. They might
have wanted Sonia for themselves. There's any number of motivations, but will never
truly know because none of these individuals have been formally questioned or interviewed, and
we only have thirteen of the forty nine people who actually submitted the mail in
questionnaire, so we've got so little information here. One alternate theory which was
proposed is that Rodney could have drank some methanol in order to get a major
buzz or something. But I'm sure he would have said something once his illness
got really bad. So I have to agree with the New Zealand Police's assessment
that no matter what happened, it seems very likely that Rodney ingusted the methanol
unknowingly. Now it's certainly possible that there was no foul play here and that
Rodney did consume some methanol accidentally. Rodney was described as loving as alcohol,
but you could probably say that about most of the personnel at the station,
since it sounds like drinking like we just said, was an essential aspect of
getting through these long South Pole winters. In fact, while sharing her experience
there on a blog, Sonya Walter once wrote, quote, I'm not aware
of any AA meetings taking place, although it wouldn't be a bad idea for
quite a few people here end quote. Rodney was also described as being a
binge drinker at times, though most people would have stopped short of calling him
an alcoholic. I'll just add that at this time, substance use disorder wasn't
the proper terminology like it what like it is today, So just calling somebody
an alcoholic would have been what they would have done at the time. Oh
yeah, yeah. And he had no less than eighteen bottles of liquor inside
his room at the time of his death, and there were also around twenty
empty bottles for both alcohol and lab agents on his desk. So could it
be possible that Rodney mistook a bottle of methanol for liquor and drank it.
I mean, Rodney was described as a very cautious person who wouldn't have made
a mistake like that. But while when you're drunk, your personal judgment can
be heavily affected However, since it was months before anyone could arrive at the
station to pick up Rodney's body, all of those bottles, as well as
a number of other pieces of potential evidence, were tossed out before anyone even
considered the possibility of a homicide investigation. Consider this, they're on this base
where, like you guys said, you almost have to drink to get through
it, Like you don't, right, sobriety is definitely an option, but
it is one of the entertainment ways that people would cope with the mental health
of being away from family and in this bizarre climate of being more social than
they might normally be. This is a bunch of scientists together, so you
know, like it lubricates the social freedoms that they might not normally feel.
And he's in a rock band. He's in two different kind of bands as
well, and so well, it sounds like a lot of alcohol. Eighteen
bottles of liquor and then these empty bottles as well. Could he have also
been the person that was almost like their personal bartender and party host. He's
quirky and fun, and he's in a band. Could he have had multiple
options for people to come by his room and he'll make a drink or like
people come to his room and hang out. There's many possible abilities that one
he stocked up for a year long stay and that's why there's not much alcohol,
or could he have entertained other people in alcohol is one of those means
as well. And then it's not quite as crazy that you go, wow,
that's a lot for a single individual. Yeah, that's never been specified,
but he does sound like the type of person who would invite people privately
to his room in order to hang out and drink because he was such an
affable person. And if there were any suspects who like showed up spent a
lot of time in his room drinking with them, they would seem like logical
people to have possibly poisoned his drinks. But of course, because these people
were never questioned, we don't know that information. And I remember reading so
I don't know if this is correct that the facility provided alcohol for the employees
as like an incentive to you know, be like, hey, you're gonna
come here, but there's going to be booze type of a thing. And
if that was the case, and we know that Rodney is this outgoing,
affable person, who's like the life of the Maybe, like you said,
Ash, he has a bunch of the bottles in his room and it just
happens to be a regular meeting place where everybody goes to kick back and have
a few drinks after they finish their day. Of course, due to jurisdictional
issues, the New Zealand Police only got to question a handful of people who
were stationed at the base, and most of those interactions were done by questionnaires
which were pre screened by the National Science Foundation. Even if Rodney was not
the victim of an intentional homicide, it's possible his death was the result of
negligence on someone's part, which is why the NSF and their employees have been
very uncooperative about the whole thing. I mean, the agency claimed they conducted
their own internal investigation, but they've never turned their findings over to the New
Zealand Police or even provided any evidence to prove this investigation actually took place.
And since the New Zealand Police's coronial inquest was described as informal, the US
Department of Justice flat out told them that they had noah Tha authority to force
the NSF to do anything. This sounds like a major catch twenty two because
in order for this to happen, the New Zealand police would have to uncover
conclusive evidence that the NSF or Raytheon were complicit in a crime. But there's
very little chance of obtaining this evidence without the cooperation. Exactly and months later,
when you actually found out you needed to go back and ask questions and
do interviews and gather evidence. I just feel like almost every entity, whether
they had true intent and desire to know the truth, almost had to know
from the onset that there's no way to get to the bottom of this,
and you're not going to get valuable information from a questionnaire that has been scrutinized
and approved to limit liability and the public relation nightmare that the NSF wouldn't want
to occur once they discover that it's a suspected homicide. So it's just a
mess from the get go, and you see for years there is this question
of so like, can we do more? Should we be doing more?
How do we do more? And by the time it's eight years later,
people are starting to say, guys, we almost have to hang this up.
I don't see how we're going to get answers in this case. One
of the most controversial figures in this whole ordeal is the base physician, doctor
Robert Thompson, who's been the subject of heavy criticism for how he handled the
situation once Rodney became seriously ill. In particular, he's been criticized for his
failure to maintain and use the ectecum machine, which could have potentially detected the
methanol in Rodney's bloodstream before it was too late. It sounds like the fate
of doctor Thompson has sort of become a mystery within a mystery, because after
numerous failed attempts by the New Zealand police to track him down and get him
to testify at the inquest, his current whereabouts were described as unknown. Of
course, I would be interested to know if Thompson genuinely believed that Rodney's death
was natural causes, or if he decided to keep any personal suspicions to himself
in order to avoid a potential panic at the Base. I highly doubt that
Thompson was directly involved in some sort of murder conspiracy, but I can see
why he would be inclined to avoid answering questions about how he handled the situation
in case of potential liability issues. Thompson did originally provide a report about how
the situation with Rodney played out, but it would have been very useful to
get his clarification on certain things. One particular oddity which has stood out in
this case are the two needle marks found on Rodney's right arm. Since Rodney
was given separate injections of halidahal and another sedative prior to his death, you
might assume this was the source of the needle marks, but Thompson apparently said
they were already there before he made the injections. Rodney allegedly admitted to interveno
his drug use in the past, but since he was right handed, it
is strange that the marks would be on his right arm. Whatever the case,
there were no illegal drugs found in Rodney's system during the autopsy, and
while a theory has been proposed that perhaps he attempted to take some alcohol intravenously,
it sounds like the coroner was pretty certain the methanol was ingested, not
injected. It's possible the needle marks have no significance to the case at all,
but again, it would have been useful for Thompson to provide testimony in
order to clarify some of these points. While NSF said that they had a
zero tolerance policy for drug use, there have been multiple reports of marijuana being
used and grown at the station, which shouldn't be too surprising, But as
far as we know, there have never been any confirmed reports of usage of
heroin or any hard drugs which would have required a needle. If doctor Thompson
is telling the truth, which I don't see why he would not tell the
truth, then Rodney was transparent that he was experimenting with different drugs at a
party and several months earlier, and so if he had done that prior to
ever coming into Antarctica, it's possible if he truly was experimenting and this was
not something he did on a normal basis, that he wasn't the one even
injecting the intravenous drugs. That's someone who was a more experienced drug user and
someone helping him to learn how to inject those drugs was the one who actually
did that for him. But he shared that and he said, yeah,
look I do drink, but it was two days ago. Yeah, those
are totally old needle marks that I was experimenting with drugs back home, And
so I don't feel like the doctor here has any nefarious desires. I think
he was presented with a case that presented more like a common illness, like
a virus that has really taken hold of him, a really bad flu and
a migraine, and he's thinking of what is Rodney's typical medical history, anxiety,
panic attacks, tourette's self medicating. Okay, this could be a result
of either withdraws or an extreme mental health episode, right, even the physical
effects of vomiting and the blood and things like that. And so to me,
given what he knew, given what he had access to, most of
me thinks he was trying to do the best he could in the moment,
trying to get external people to call in and help consult on the case,
but racing against a clock, knowing there's something wrong, his health's declining,
and I don't know what else to try. Yeah, And since doctor Thompson's
whereabouts are described as unknown and nobody had any luck tracking him down, I've
always been curious if he's even aware that Rodney's case was. They found that
he died of methanol poisoning, and that his case has gotten so much publicity
and is so dissected. I mean, for all he knows, he could
have just moved on with his life. Assume Rodney died of natural causes and
that no one is paying any attention to it now. Even though there was
a large supply of alcohol available at the base, it apparently wasn't uncommon for
people stationed there to operate their own still to make moonshine. After all,
if you're living in complete isolation in the middle of nowhere for an entire year,
even drinking traditional alcohol can become monotonous. Apparently, one particularly popular brand
of homemade alcohol, which was often brewed at the base was called Toast Juice,
and it's been reported that the New Zealand Police was able to obtain a
bottle of Toast Juice for ESR testing and discovered that it was seventy one percent
pure alcohol. The Toast Juice was also reportedly discounted as being the source of
the methanol in Rodney's body. But if people at the base were frequently brewing
their own alcohol, you can see how something might have gone horribly wrong.
Even if the Toast Juice did not contain methanol. Rodney still could have consumed
some homemade moonshine containing methanol without even realizing it. But then again, if
Rodney did something like that and had any inkling that it could have been the
source of the illness he was experiencing, would he have said something to doctor
Thompson. I mean, while he may have gotten into trouble for consuming or
making moonshine, his life was on the line here, oh absolutely, And
he was trying to get help. He was scared, and so the only
thing they knew to do was to sedate him and give him a how doll.
And if that is the response, right, it's like he's he's scared,
he's panicking. I feel like he would have been as helpful as possible,
begging for help and saying, you know what about this? Could it
have been this? You know, doc, what's wrong? If he knew
I just ingested some homemade moonshine. I don't think he's worried about any kind
of criminal or career liability at that point. Pure alcohol, my god.
We're particularly intrigued by the theory involving the mysterious bottle of liquor that Rodney brought
to the base with him, containing a label which appeared to feature Portuguese writing.
The bottle was never found, but there were multiple witnesses who were called
seeing it, and if it was thrown away, then this implies that the
liquor was consumed before Rodney's death, and if it happened to be tainted liquor
containing methanol, then Rodney may not have had any inkling that it was causing
his illness since he obtained it before he even arrived at the South Pole.
According to the World Health Organization, tainted alcohol can lead to as many as
three hundred deaths per year from acute methanol poisoning. On our last episode,
we made reference to a two thousand and nine article about this case in Men's
Journal, and it made reference to an incident where a sherpa wound up dying
at a base camp at Mount Everest after drinking methanyl tainted whiskey. If that's
what happened, then technically no one from the base had any complicity in Rodney's
death, but without having the bottle to test his evidence, it would be
impossible to know for sure. But of course this theory is pure speculation,
and we cannot rule out the possibility that something else led to Rodney's poisoning and
someone from the base knows the truth and is never talked. If it is
that bottle, there's just zero way of being able to trace that back.
I mean, not really understanding the time that's passed and when he acquired that,
and if there were surveillance cameras of someone replacing it on the shelf as
a tainted bottle versus the regular bottle, all that would have been gone,
you know, a year after the purchase. Remember he came I believe in
December, the year before he died, and then his body is held almost
until you know, the winter again a year later. So no one was
going to have information about that tainted bottle, even from the store that it
was purchased from a year later. Okay, I'm confused about the statistic with
the chanted alcohol. Do they mean that it is three hundred people die from
tainted alcohol that is bought commercially or do they mean that three hundred people die
from tainted alcohol that they could have potentially homebrewed. They've never specified that.
I think that was just like a statistic they put in the Men's Journal article.
But yeah, that'd be interesting because if it was home brewed alcohol,
how can you really know for sure if it was tainted. Yeah, it
says that most cases of methanol poisoning and this is not for men's health,
This is from a science journal, but it says are a result of drinking
home brewed alcohol. Methanol is either deliberately added to strengthen the informally produced alcohol,
or it's left in the brew because of poor cleaning and distillery practices.
Aren't you supposed to like pour off the top when you make like a homebrew
or moonshine or something, and that pours off the methanol. I don't know.
I think people used to die alcohol. I don't. I don't remember.
You're from the South, you should know now. So one theory which
has been pushed forward is that Rodney's death was the result of a prank on
horribly wrong. I mean, lacing someone's drink with methanol seems like a pretty
stupid idea for a practical joke. But people don't always make the best decisions
when they're drunk and have been living in isolation from That's why it's such a
shame that Rodney did not receive a proper autopsy to find the methanol in his
system until over six months after his death, because by that point, the
forty nine other people who had been stationed at the base had all gone their
separate ways and were scattered all over the world. The key to figuring out
what happened to Rodney would be at a pinpoint, the last time he took
a drink. When Rodney was being examined by doctor Thompson, he said he
hadn't taken a drink in nearly two days. But where did this drink take
place? Was it in the privacy of his own room, or was it
at a social event with numerous people. Did someone else have the opportunity to
handle one of Rodney's drinks before they gave it to him. If this had
occurred anywhere else besides the South Pole, law enforcement probably would have gotten involved
immediately and backtracked Rodney's movements to try and determine where and when he took the
fatal drink containing the methanol. But after more than six months, figuring out
something like this would pretty much be impossible, particularly since only a small fraction
of the basis personnel. We're willing to answer questions from the New Zealand police.
If someone wanted to murder Rodney, poisoning one of his drinks would be
the absolute perfect way to do so, because methanol is odorless and known for
having a taste that resembles vodka, so Rodney would have never even noticed.
But I guess the issue is that Rodney had one hundred and fifty milliliters of
methanol in his system, which is about enough to fill a wine glass.
So I have to wonder what he was drinking to be able to consume that
much without realizing it, my goodness, and for how long? And if
someone's sitting there deliberately poisoning multiple beverages for him, that's incredibly disturbing and very
risky as well. I had no idea it was that much to fill a
wine glass. So for me, if he's sitting there and he's having multiple
drinks that are being tainted, it can take, I believe, up to
like seventy two hours for methanol to finally shut somebody's body down if it's a
high dose like that. So he is presenting me symptom what forty eight hours
after he's had his last drink. But it's such a high level. Do
you is there any way that that medically could have metabolized in his system and
it actually seems like more than what it was like, could that at all
be a possibility, or when it was mixed with other drugs that it seems
to have thrown off the chemical I don't know, makeup of his body.
That just seems like so much. I'm not entirely sure. I mean,
it was six months after he died when they finally found those millileaters, so
I'm not sure if the body does produce methanol after someone dies. But they
did say that it had a vodka taste, so it could be a thing
where someone literally poured a glass of methanol and told Rodney it was vodka and
that's how he consumed so much. Well, that's true, And you could
also if you have a mixer with it that dolls, you know, pretty
heavy, like an orange juice or something like that, it wouldn't it wouldn't
be as suspicious either. Now we mentioned earlier, but no less than eighteen
liquor bottles were found inside Rodney's room, So theoretically, if someone wanted to
sneak into his room and slip methanol into his liquor to poison him, How
would they know which bottle to choose. In order for a murder plot to
work, the perpetrator would need to be certain that Rodney was drinking a specific
beverage at a specific time, which is why it would have been so useful
to piece together Rodney's drinking habits in the days preceding his death. But of
course that still doesn't answer the question about who would have had a potential motive
to harm Rodney. Well, you might have noticed that we haven't made much
mention of his fiance, Sonia Walter. Sonia refused to give interviews following Rodney's
death, but she did provide evidence at the coronial inquest and would continue to
return to Antarctica to work lengthy stints there. It seems like she was content
to put the whole incident behind her and move on with her life, and
for all we know, she might genuinely believe there was no foul play involved.
Certainly don't have any reason to suspect Sonya and anything, but I can't
help but wonder if their relationship might have set someone else off. Even though
an isolated research station in the South Pole sounds like an unusual place to meet
your soulmate, it sounds like Rodney and Sonya fell head over heels in love
with each other and seemed to be a perfect match. I mean, the
couple had literally not spent any time together in normal civilization before they decided that
they wanted to get married. But what if there was someone at the base
who had feelings for Sonya and became jealous. I mean, this is not
an environment where you could just move on if you see someone you like with
another partner. If anyone had issues with seeing Rodney and Sonya together, it's
not like they could just avoid the situation, as there were pretty much trapped
there for another six months. I have to wonder if this could have driven
someone to murder. But once again, this is all just pure speculation,
since I have not heard any stories about someone having issues with Rodney and Sonya's
relationship or any friction ever developing over it at the base. I would love
to go back in time and figure out what the social scenario was there.
I mean, they're playing these bands, they're having these concerts there. Drinking
is a very common pastime for everybody. I don't know why, in my
gut, I almost feel as if somebody was saying, oh, let me
run make you a drink. And his room really was like a sub bar
where you can run in there, mix a drink and a cocktail, run
back out to the show where he's playing music and everyone's having fun. And
so if someone wanted to go help him by getting a drink, they could
have easily poison it and known exactly which alcohol to select. It seems crazy
that you would decide to taint a whole bottle because there is a risk that
your target isn't the one that consumes it. Sonia could have consumed it.
One of the other band members could have consumed it, one of the other
researchers could have You might have accidentally been served by that bottle. So I
would more see someone say let me run get you and they bring it to
him, and that's how he's able to consume it. If he was performing
a few nights earlier, it's very possible someone was a runner running to get
him some drinks. Now, one thing I'd like to know is was there
anyone else at the base who started hitting on Sonya after Rodney died, or
making attempts to comfort her and say I'll be there for you no matter what.
I mean. I haven't heard information about her getting involved in another relationship,
but I'd like to find out if someone was paying extra special attention to
Sonya after Rodney passed away, because that would make them look like a promising
suspect, oh for sure. Or was Rodney getting special attention or special notoriety
in praise for research he was doing that could equally make somebody angry. I
mean, I certainly hope that Rodney's death wasn't a murder, because if it
was, the responsible party has done a very successful job at getting away with
it. If the New Zealand police somehow uncovered evidence which pointed to a specific
suspect, I can only imagine the red tape which might be involved in order
to make an arrest and bring them to trial. While I discount the suicide
theory, and I'm pretty certain that Rodney was completely unaware that he ingested methanol,
I really don't think there's enough conclusive evidence to point towards his death being
a homicide or some sort of freak accident such as drinking taint and moonshine.
But if it's the latter, then I do have to wonder if there are
some people from the base who have always known more than they let on.
Detective Senior Sergeant Wormold speculated that there might have been some employees from the NSApp
and raytheon who did not want to cooperate because they feared it could affect through
employment prospects. It's quite sad that Rodney's family have stated that they've pretty much
come to terms with the fact that they might not receive any answers about what
happened to him, and given the jurisdictional issues, there's not really anything they
can do about it. So much time has passed that if someone knows something,
I really wish they would come forward to at least put the Marx family
at peace and assure them that there isn't somebody out there getting away with murder.
However, if the solution is something like Rodney being poisoned by a tainted
bottle of liquor he purchased elsewhere before he arrived at the base, then we
will probably never know the truth. All that being said, if you happen
to have any information about the unexplained death of Rodney Marx. Please contact the
appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley, any final thoughts on the case. I'm gonna
have to piggyback off you, Robin. When we talk about the family,
they said, quote, it seems impossible, right, practically impossible that we
could ever find answers here and to know exactly what happened to our Rodney.
And like we talked about earlier, Rodney had called home, not just to
share that he's fine and doing well in Antarctica and he is soaring in his
professional duties, but hey, mom and Dad, I'm bringing home a girl
who I'm marrying. I'm engaged, I am starting to grow my family.
You have a daughter in law who can't wait to meet you. I mean,
this is such an exciting time in their son's life. And then he
tragically dies from what they think is cardiac arrest. And so imagine processing your
young son's death and just thinking, wow, what are the odds that our
healthy son goes to this research place that he's been so many times before and
his body just gives out. It's wild to process. They're sitting there waiting
for his body and his remains to come back so that they can give him
proper burial, and then they get him back in their care. They check
an autopsy off the list, which is usually required when there's a sudden death
of a young individual, and it's methanol poisoning. So in their gut,
they are not grieving a tragic natural death, which has its own set of
coping mechanisms and grief kind of processes that go with it. Now they have
a question mark not only of like tell me what happened, But it's really
hard to understand, Like you said, is it murder? Is it ambern
with something? Could it have been the result of something at that lab?
Was it prior to him getting there, that he was exposed to something.
There's no answers or guidance for them, And so to now process what was
odd and crazy and tragic before a young man dying of natural causes, Now
it sets off a whole nother journey of what even happened? Like what senseless
thing happened that robbed us of time? Not just with Rodney, but remember
they lost so much more than that. They lost Sonia, They lost potential
kids that they could have had together. The family lost big time when they
buried their son, and so to not have answers is difficult. To feel
like institutions that your son gave his career in life to weren't really protecting his
best interest. All of that has to be so harmful. So my prayer
would be that one day there is some kind of clarity for the family.
But at this point it's so sad to say that I almost side with the
family and it says it's quote practically impossible to know what happened. Yeah,
I agree unless there is somebody who comes forward. And the one person that
I'm just so interested in is yes, the doctor is interesting, but I
don't think he had anything to do with it. I think there was potentially
just some negligence on his ecticam machine that he didn't recalibrate it or keep it
up to date. But it's the person who was anonymous and wrote in the
suggestion that they check into the liquor bottle with the that was shaped like a
shrimp or had a shrimp on it and potentially Portuguese writing. And I'd said,
well, maybe it was misdirection, and Ashley said, well, maybe
they did the poisoning, and they did it in that bottle and so they're
like cantin there. It is, so it could be any number of things,
and maybe that person was anonymous because of the corporation. Maybe they worked
for Raytheon or the NSF and they didn't want to have their job put into
jeopardy, or potentially they had something to do with it, and there's a
more nefarious angle there. But it is so heartbreaking in this situation, it's
literally like an Agather Christiane novel, but for the family, it's a very
real situation where their loved one goes He's brilliant, this brilliant astrophysicist who clearly
has struggled with drugs in the past. You know, you don't casually do
intervenous drugs, and he'd gotten himself to a place where maybe that's one of
the reasons that he liked being in that arctica. If you're somebody who'd struggled
with drug use and you know that it's going to be a drug free environment,
then you basically only have access to alcohol. So I can see how
that would be comforting in some way for somebody who may struggle with that,
And I just I find this case so frustrating. We have so little information
here, and I Just've got nothing else to say except for I really hope
that somebody comes forward if it is indeed murder, because this family really and
truly deserves to know what happened to Rodney. Yeah, in our last episode,
we used the word unprecedented to describe this case, because I can guarantee
you We're not going to find another case like this throughout the entire world.
And that is the problem. That is the big obstacle for getting it solved,
Because if we had a situation like this where someone was in an isolated
location and diet under suspicious circumstances, they'd be able to launch an investigation quickly,
question everyone else was there, collect the evidence, and even if it
was never solved, at least you could know that the best possible investigation was
being performed. But that was just not an option here because they could not
figure out Rodney's cause of death for six months, they could only question a
handful of the people who were actually present at the station. All the evidence
which could have pointed towards homicide had since been disposed of. So it's like
the only way this could be solved after all this time is if there is
someone from the station who knows the truth about what happened and decides to come
forward and develops the content. But if this is a case where Rodney just
drank a tainted bottle of liquor, then there's any did it alone without the
company of anyone else, then there's no way to conclusively solve this. So
it's kind of a terrible situation for the family where you really don't hope that
this wasn't a homicide and that someone is getting away with it. But if
it was not, then there's no way to provide the family with conclusive answers.
I mean, it is good that they've acknowledged that they may not get
any conclusive answers, because well, that's a terrible situation. I guess that
is better that they have come to terms with that fact, but it would
be nice if they could get a more conclusive resolution. I myself, I
am kind of on the fence. I mean, under almost circumstances, I
would automatically assume this was a murder, this is an intentional poisoning. But
because we don't have any information about potential suspects, motive or like a means
to carry out the crime, then we just can't say that for certainty.
I cannot rule out the possibility that this was some sort of just accidental poisoning,
just a tragic accident. But until someone comes forward, we will probably
never know the full truth and this will be literally one of the coldest cold
cases to ever exist. Robin, do you want to tell us a little
bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has
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