1 00:00:01,199 --> 00:00:07,080 We are back from Crime Con and just getting caught up on our various responsibilities. 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:10,480 The trip was tremendous and we'll have a lot more to tell you about 3 00:00:10,599 --> 00:00:16,519 in the next coming episodes of Mind over Murder. In the meantime, we 4 00:00:16,559 --> 00:00:22,519 wanted to bring you a bonus episode where we interviewed Andrea Lankford just a few 5 00:00:22,559 --> 00:00:28,879 months ago discussing her book Trail of the Lost. Andrea's book was the top 6 00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:35,320 prize winner at Crime Con in the True Crime Books category, much like our 7 00:00:35,399 --> 00:00:40,920 friend Kate Miles was last year for her book Trailed. So another phenomenal book, 8 00:00:41,079 --> 00:00:45,759 and we thought we would bring you this episode on Trailer of the Lost 9 00:00:46,039 --> 00:00:49,320 as a bonus episode, and we'll look forward to catching up with you soon 10 00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:55,600 here at Mind over Murder. You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. 11 00:00:56,759 --> 00:01:00,479 My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting for and now podcaster. 12 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,640 I am now trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder 13 00:01:04,719 --> 00:01:08,519 victim to help other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on 14 00:01:08,599 --> 00:01:14,000 the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway 15 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:18,120 Murders Facebook group. Together with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. 16 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:21,959 I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, 17 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:26,959 as well as the social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders 18 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:32,040 Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Over 19 00:01:32,159 --> 00:01:36,400 Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by 20 00:01:36,439 --> 00:01:40,280 Andrea Lankford here to talk to us about her book Trail of the Lost, 21 00:01:40,439 --> 00:01:45,480 the relentless search to bring home the missing hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. 22 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:48,680 Andrea, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate you being here. 23 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,840 Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Go ahead 24 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:57,120 and start by telling our listeners about your new book and ultimately why you decided 25 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:02,319 to write it. Trail Bloss came out last August twenty three. It is 26 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:07,479 about three hikers who went missing for the Pacific Crest Trail and my journey to 27 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:13,400 try to figure out why. I started writing the book in November twenty seventeen, 28 00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:20,240 and I embedded myself with a group of amateur sluic searchers for five years. 29 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:24,319 We did our darndest to try to solve this ministry. I'll also befitted 30 00:02:24,479 --> 00:02:30,680 the families of the missing people. And so this book is a big journey 31 00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:37,039 of showing what the things I learned and solved during that research tell us a 32 00:02:37,039 --> 00:02:42,919 little bit about what happens when a hiker goes missing in a national park. 33 00:02:43,319 --> 00:02:46,599 Most of us go to national parks, have a wonderful time. We might 34 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:51,039 interact with the rangers and other staff, but for the most part, except 35 00:02:51,039 --> 00:02:57,280 for maybe asking directions or attending a workshop, most of our interactions with the 36 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:04,280 National Park Service rangers and staff are not in urgencies. What happens when a 37 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:08,159 hiker goes missing. Now, when you're a park ranger, you usually refer 38 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:13,120 to this as an overdue hiker, and you can get reports of overdew hikers 39 00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:15,120 several times a day, definitely several times a week if you work at a 40 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:21,280 busy park like the Grand Canyon Ordysemite. And usually what I happened is a 41 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:23,599 friend will say, hey, hey, Joe went hiking into the Grand Canyon 42 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:27,240 and he didn't show up for work, or he didn't show up meet us 43 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:32,879 for dinner tonight. And when the ranger gets that type of report. We 44 00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:38,719 are trained to treat this as an emergency because there's a good chance this hikers 45 00:03:38,719 --> 00:03:43,479 in trouble somewhere in the wilderness and needs your health right away. So the 46 00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:46,840 ranger starts to investigate and ask questions. Is maybe assign someone to be the 47 00:03:46,879 --> 00:03:51,840 an investigator. You also will often send a hasty what you call a hasty 48 00:03:51,919 --> 00:03:54,120 team, and a hasty could be rangers on foot, or it could be 49 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:58,599 jumping in a helicopter and flying to where you think this person may be in 50 00:03:58,639 --> 00:04:01,439 trouble. The other thing that arranger needs to do when they get an overdew 51 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:08,000 hiker case is contain the search area. And containing the search area can involve 52 00:04:08,479 --> 00:04:12,639 setting up a roadblock or having somebody at the trailhead to make sure the person 53 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:15,759 doesn't hike out of the search area without you knowing it. So, Andrew, 54 00:04:15,839 --> 00:04:23,160 you've said that overdue hikers happen on the daily. How many times? 55 00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:28,920 How many occasions do we have in which people have gone missing and national parks 56 00:04:29,399 --> 00:04:33,439 and just have not been found. Do we have a number on that there 57 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:40,079 is another gets thrown around. It's probably an underestimate because the federal government has 58 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:44,040 not done a good job across your stations like your US Forest, your National 59 00:04:44,079 --> 00:04:47,480 Park Service, your other wilderness lands of tracking this, but the number of 60 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:53,519 that gets thlown around. At sixteen hundred hikers have gone missing and stayed missing 61 00:04:53,519 --> 00:04:59,920 international parks now the overdue higer. One thing that's interesting is around ninety seve 62 00:05:00,079 --> 00:05:03,120 hundred percent of those cases are resolved within twenty four to forty hours. Person's 63 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:09,040 usually not alive. Sometimes the body is recovered, so it is rare, 64 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:13,800 but there's still a pretty big number. Sixteen hundred even as an underestimate, 65 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:17,040 that's a pretty big number of assault cases. I know, it's hard to 66 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:24,079 generalize of the ninety seven percent, which is a pretty happy statistic of hikers 67 00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:30,040 that are found, what are some typical reasons for why they were overdue? 68 00:05:30,079 --> 00:05:33,920 If what are the classic explanations, Because I'm sure lots of different things happen, 69 00:05:34,079 --> 00:05:40,120 but what are fairly typical things that happen to a hiker and then he 70 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:44,360 or she has later found. Yeah, it really runs the gamut. The 71 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:49,120 best is they just overextended their self and they are just not out yet. 72 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:54,360 They're still walking, hiking, limping maybe when they just haven't got out. 73 00:05:54,439 --> 00:05:59,439 Another is they get lost and they're wondering around lost another they fallen or they 74 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:04,519 fall into hypothermia and they're either injured or they've passed away. And so usually 75 00:06:04,519 --> 00:06:11,639 it's an environmental thing, an accident of sub kind, the scarier ones, 76 00:06:11,759 --> 00:06:15,720 or every once in a while is foul. Ply. Also on occasion it's 77 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:19,560 a voluntary disappearance where they actually are either pretending to be missing, or they 78 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:25,319 are contemplating suicide, or they're not even in the area that you're searching them. 79 00:06:25,319 --> 00:06:30,720 They're off having a vender or something. That those voluntary disappearances do happen 80 00:06:30,759 --> 00:06:34,639 on occasion. I think of the proximity of the Grand Canyon National Park in 81 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:41,800 Las Vegas, having combined visits to those two areas in the same vacation, 82 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,000 I think that would be unusual, wouldn't it if someone said, Oh, 83 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,160 I went to the Grand Canyon, but in reality, I took a side 84 00:06:48,199 --> 00:06:53,519 trip to Las Vegas, and we're on a bender. Yes, I worked 85 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:58,879 at Grand Canyon about four years, and we would make jokes about people being 86 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,759 in Vegas, but I don't think I ever had a case where they actually 87 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:09,279 weren't in the park, So that is rare. The interesting when I was 88 00:07:09,399 --> 00:07:14,079 researching trail, the loss there seems and you'll hear families of the missing talk 89 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:17,519 about this, and it seems to be something more like the county agencies do 90 00:07:17,759 --> 00:07:21,639 where they especially if a young male goes and missing, they just the cops 91 00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:28,120 have a tendency to assume they are doing this on purpose, and that's very 92 00:07:28,279 --> 00:07:30,480 frustrating for the family because the family will be like, oh, no, 93 00:07:30,639 --> 00:07:33,199 not my son. He would be home, he would call his mom, 94 00:07:33,279 --> 00:07:38,519 things like that, and that bias I think could be a problem in my 95 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:43,680 experience from researching the book, when someone does go missing in the wilderness and 96 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,240 you have to send out a search team for them, whether that's in the 97 00:07:46,279 --> 00:07:50,800 Grand Canyon or Yosemite, what are some of the issues that face NPS, 98 00:07:50,959 --> 00:07:57,079 rangers and rescue personnel when they're out looking for someone who's gotten missing. You've 99 00:07:57,120 --> 00:08:01,360 got vast wilderness, treacherous areas. Often people go missing when the weather, 100 00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:05,959 when there's a big storm, there's an avalanche situation on in Tahoe. I'll 101 00:08:05,959 --> 00:08:11,279 see it's Tahoe right now, it's wide out and they've got people buried in 102 00:08:11,279 --> 00:08:15,360 the snow. So not only is that just hard to search for people, 103 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:20,800 it's also hazardous for the searchers. You also have staffing. Most are agency 104 00:08:20,839 --> 00:08:26,199 search and rescue agencies, and definitely the National Bark Service is understaffed. You 105 00:08:26,279 --> 00:08:31,320 also have triage issues because let's say you've got three people buried in avalanche, 106 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:35,279 and then you've got five skiers who fell and broke bones over here, and 107 00:08:35,279 --> 00:08:39,879 so you have to triosh how you're going to respond, like in the Mashazli 108 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:46,000 situation. So those are some biggies. Another is cooperation. Are sometimes these 109 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:50,720 areas are in more than one jurisdiction, So are the agencies cooperating with each 110 00:08:50,759 --> 00:08:56,080 other to help get these people found? You mean adjoining lands where you may 111 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:01,960 be leaving a national park and entering a state park or some other preserve. 112 00:09:01,639 --> 00:09:07,200 How does one end up in one place versus another. Yes, it's that's 113 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:11,159 exactly one of the issues that I write about in Traivel Loss is one of 114 00:09:11,159 --> 00:09:16,120 the missing hikers, Chris Fowler. He went missing in Washington State in the 115 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:20,679 Pacific Crest Trail. This is a long trail. It's twenty five hundred plus 116 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:24,759 miles and so it goes through numerous counties, three states and two countries, 117 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:31,000 and through hiker is out there for a week months and so they're crossing jurisdictions 118 00:09:31,039 --> 00:09:35,799 on an hourly basis sometimes. So in the Chris Fowler case, what happened, 119 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:39,600 it was real easy for the agencies to go, he's on in my 120 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:41,440 county, he's in your county, it's in that county's in that county. 121 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:46,480 And so the family was having to do a run around, are run around 122 00:09:46,559 --> 00:09:50,720 with five different counties to try to get somewhere to initiate a search, and 123 00:09:50,759 --> 00:09:52,440 that was very frustrating to them. And I write about that and Trail the 124 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:56,799 Loss. Oh. I was absolutely appalled by that when I read that section. 125 00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:03,879 That's unbelievable. Let's turn our attention very briefly to crime and national parks, 126 00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:07,279 which is something that is a concern for both of us. So what 127 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:11,559 are the numbers like when we think about crime and national park is that something 128 00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:16,240 that happens terribly often? What are the numbers for crime like in national parks? 129 00:10:16,879 --> 00:10:22,039 Unfortunately, we don't really know one. We've got jurisdictional issues. You 130 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,120 have some parks, like you see many the rangers have exclusive jurisdiction, and 131 00:10:26,159 --> 00:10:28,440 you seemity you could probably go there and get pretty good numbers and what the 132 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:33,840 crime rates is, but other parts that shared with the county, and so 133 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:39,240 a lot numbers could get lost in the system. So I'm going off of 134 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:43,360 experience, and so from my experensive ranger, it's definitely more than people think, 135 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:48,320 but it's probably less than it and your home like driving to your workplace 136 00:10:48,399 --> 00:10:52,639 or going to the mall, so it's probably less than that, but it's 137 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:56,799 more than what you think. It's still it's a problem. Still there. 138 00:10:56,080 --> 00:11:00,600 We would want no crime and no foul play in the national barsh would be 139 00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:05,799 the PCT preference. Is there a database somewhere where all of these incidences of 140 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:11,000 crime and national parks is stored? If there is, I can't find it, 141 00:11:11,639 --> 00:11:16,399 and so I don't. Like I said, you probably call Yosemite and 142 00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:20,120 maybe they'd make you have a what where you have to ask for information public 143 00:11:20,159 --> 00:11:24,879 information requests. You could probably get some good numbers over park block yusemity, 144 00:11:24,919 --> 00:11:28,399 but over the system as a whole it exists, I can't find it. 145 00:11:28,799 --> 00:11:33,879 Wow, You're not the only National Park Service employee or former employee that we've 146 00:11:33,879 --> 00:11:39,639 ever talked to who has brought this up. So this has come up several 147 00:11:39,639 --> 00:11:43,720 times. I don't want to bog the podcast down with this too much, 148 00:11:43,759 --> 00:11:46,799 but I will say some of the people that we've talked to have said they 149 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:50,200 think that this is deliberate on the part of the Park Service. That the 150 00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:56,919 Park Service wants to sell us something which is the great outdoors and access to 151 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,840 natural lands, and I at it how wonderful national parks are. At the 152 00:12:01,879 --> 00:12:07,080 same time, much like Disneyland or any other big operation, they don't want 153 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:13,080 to focus on the fact that occasionally it may be rare and from an overall 154 00:12:13,159 --> 00:12:18,720 perspective, but sometimes bad things do happen inside national parks. It seems like 155 00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:22,600 the Park Service doesn't want to talk about it. I've gotten the same feeling 156 00:12:22,879 --> 00:12:26,559 when I was arranged at Yosemite. They assigned me to go with the news 157 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:31,720 crew, and I was naive and I just showed them what was happening. 158 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,879 We went into the evidence, we looked at guns and drugs, and took 159 00:12:35,919 --> 00:12:41,559 them on actual crime scenes. What I've heard is that the concession wasn't too 160 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:45,679 happy with the story that came out because it was disturbing to the viewers. 161 00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:48,879 Oh my gosh, there's a lot of crime going on Yosemite, and that 162 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:54,159 we were told to not talk about these things to the media anymore. We've 163 00:12:54,159 --> 00:13:00,039 also found in the Colonial Parkway murders that we've gotten sometimes a distinct lack of 164 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:05,320 cooperation in terms of access. Even several years back, when we wanted to 165 00:13:05,399 --> 00:13:11,120 search for some missing persons who was part of the Colonial Parkway murders, we 166 00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:16,879 actually asked the National Park Service for permission to bring in cadaver dogs. And 167 00:13:16,919 --> 00:13:20,399 these are professionals and they know how to conduct a search with a very low 168 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,879 impact. Boy did they give us a tremendous amount of grief. It was 169 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:31,759 one roadblock after another to the point where all of the families involved were so 170 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:37,360 exasperated with the National Park Service. I actually said, it feels like they're 171 00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:41,320 more concerned about the blades of grass in the Colonial Parkway National Park than they 172 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:46,519 would be about the fact that we think several murders happened there and our loved 173 00:13:46,519 --> 00:13:52,519 ones are still out there inside that national park, and they are doing everything 174 00:13:52,559 --> 00:13:56,600 they can to prevent us from looking for it. I think sometimes there's a 175 00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:03,960 very strong pr focus on the part of the Park Service. Yeah, there's 176 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:09,399 something there. I don't understand it. It does exist outside the partures as 177 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:13,559 well. This is tangential to issues I discussed in the Trail to Loss. 178 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:20,440 For example, drones can be used to find to work cold cases. They 179 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:26,039 could do a grid photograph search, take photographs. Those photographs can be searched 180 00:14:26,039 --> 00:14:30,600 by humans that are called squinters because they're staring at the computer screen searching images 181 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:35,039 all day. And this has been successful. But drones aren't allowed in the 182 00:14:35,159 --> 00:14:39,519 National park or wildness areas or state parks. And there's other cases where even 183 00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:43,279 the FAA has been problems with drone searchers in Texas, for example, just 184 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:48,000 being two. They need to be, in my opinion, more flexible when 185 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:52,960 it comes to human life and suffering. We can let let a blade of 186 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:58,440 grass go on occasion. Totally agreed. I want to pivot to the subject 187 00:14:58,519 --> 00:15:01,480 of Trail of the Loft, which is the missing hikers on the PCT. 188 00:15:03,559 --> 00:15:07,039 I think most people have probably heard of the Appalachian Trail before, but there 189 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:11,360 may not be people who are as familiar with the Pacific Crest Trail. Can 190 00:15:11,399 --> 00:15:16,000 you give a brief overview for anybody who's not familiar. What is the PCT? 191 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:22,279 The Pacific Crest Trail runs through the Pacific Coast states, California, Oregon, 192 00:15:22,879 --> 00:15:26,600 Washington. It goes from the Mexico border in California all the way up 193 00:15:26,639 --> 00:15:31,159 to the Canadian border in Washington. It's twenty five hundred miles. A little 194 00:15:31,159 --> 00:15:35,879 bit more nap and people to like it. Now, you guys, if 195 00:15:35,919 --> 00:15:39,720 you're thinking, then you've read you might understand why the numbers of people wanted 196 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:41,000 to throw hide the trail. And that's people wanted to go from A to 197 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:46,080 B all the way to Canada to Mexico in one season since the release of 198 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:52,159 Rails Strain's memoir Wild In the movie starring Reice Witherspoon that came out in December 199 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:56,840 twenty fourteen. So it was since that movie came out the numbers of people 200 00:15:56,840 --> 00:16:00,639 wanted to do this of skyrocketed. They had to issue a permit system to 201 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:06,519 curtail the numbers each day. And it's also a new kind of hikers are 202 00:16:06,519 --> 00:16:11,919 attracted to it. People who are seeking a new life, the more seeking 203 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:17,679 spiritual growth, like Cheryl Straight in her novel or her memoir. Not necessarily 204 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:22,519 you're Pardy, I climb Mount Everest and k two type people are hiking it. 205 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:26,159 There's potential there for problems because people are hitting the trail a little bit 206 00:16:26,279 --> 00:16:30,279 naive, and the Pacid of Cristil is very rugged and very remote. These 207 00:16:30,279 --> 00:16:36,159 are living the Sierra the North Cascades in Washington. These are very rugged, 208 00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:41,399 dangerous areas. My boyfriend had done some hiking in the Sierras when he was 209 00:16:41,399 --> 00:16:45,039 in high school and lived in California, and when I told him about this 210 00:16:45,159 --> 00:16:49,120 section of the PCT, he was like, you could not pay me enough 211 00:16:49,159 --> 00:16:52,919 money to try to hike that. He was like, it's very rugged and 212 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,840 very difficult, and he was teasing me. He was like, we can 213 00:16:55,879 --> 00:16:57,240 go out there sometimes. I said, you know what, No, I 214 00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:03,399 think I'm good. I think I'm good. Especially having read this and looking 215 00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:07,680 at those photos, I got a sense of just how terribly imposing the sounds. 216 00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:15,240 So what drew you to the stories of Chris Sherpe Fowler, David O'Sullivan, 217 00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:19,400 and Christopher Sylvia. How did you have those come onto your radar, 218 00:17:19,559 --> 00:17:25,000 so to speak? I heard about a case, the Chris Sylvia case. 219 00:17:25,079 --> 00:17:27,880 He was twenty eight years old and he was hiking the Pacific christ Trail in 220 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:34,359 twenty fifteen and he vanished in February, and the San Diego County that's in 221 00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:38,920 southern California made searched hard for him. They had dogs or patrol agents, 222 00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,720 you name it. Whereuth there trying to find him for five days, and 223 00:17:41,759 --> 00:17:47,000 then they eventually gave up. But his gear was found on the Pacific Crist 224 00:17:47,039 --> 00:17:51,680 Trail, and his circumstances reminded me of a case. I had worked at 225 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:55,839 the Grand Kenyon of another young man in his twenties and I failed to find 226 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:59,519 him. I was assigned as the search coordinator, and I tried to coordinate 227 00:17:59,599 --> 00:18:03,599 the entire church effort. I didn't find the guy, and that bothered me. 228 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:07,759 I had to tell his husband that we were winded. His father excuse 229 00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:11,440 me that we were winding down the search, and it bothered me. Fears 230 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:14,519 it haunted me. So the chrys silvia case reminded me of that case so 231 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:18,240 much. I just had a compassionate impulse, and I called his family and 232 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:22,119 asked for their blessing to open a pro bono investigation into that case. Now, 233 00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:26,039 from that case, I started to learn about the I look for patterns. 234 00:18:26,079 --> 00:18:30,160 I investigated case, and I learned there were two other young men who 235 00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,519 were missing for the Pacific Christ Trail, three young men, one each year 236 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:37,680 three years in a row and that struck me as uncanny. And so then 237 00:18:37,799 --> 00:18:44,039 I started to meet some of these amateur sleuths and I joined their effort and 238 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:48,559 was just compelled to do my best alongside them to try to solve this mystery. 239 00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:53,160 So I would say for me that one of the most intriguing parts of 240 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:57,599 the book was reading about the people that you met online, some of you 241 00:18:57,599 --> 00:19:02,519 you eventually met in real life, who were dedicated to searching for Chris, 242 00:19:02,559 --> 00:19:06,839 Shurpa and David. What would you say were some of the highlights for you 243 00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:10,759 of working with online researchers and what are some of the challenges as well that 244 00:19:10,799 --> 00:19:14,920 come along with that. Yeah, that's an excellent question. What happened is 245 00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:19,119 I started joining the Facebook missing hiker groups, and especially the Chris Fowler Missing 246 00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:25,039 Hiker group, and I was watching all these amateur searchers, and by amateurs, 247 00:19:25,079 --> 00:19:27,960 I just mean they're not professional searchers. They're professional people, a lot 248 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,440 of them, but they don't search for a living. And to me, 249 00:19:32,599 --> 00:19:37,000 these Facebook Missing hiker groups were like, it's joining those is like walking into 250 00:19:37,039 --> 00:19:41,319 the saloon in a while with anything goes. You've got all kind of rowdy 251 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,000 characters in there. Bitter squabbles are likely to break out at any time. 252 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,480 It's a little rough and rowdy in there. But every once in a while 253 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:52,279 I'd see the saloon doors open at this crazy Facebook place, and quiet hero 254 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:57,119 would walk in, somebody that had pure intentions, just wanted to help this 255 00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:02,000 family fund their missing loved ones. And the first quiet had I write about 256 00:20:02,039 --> 00:20:04,119 a lot of these flight heroes, but the first one that struck my interest 257 00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:07,559 was a woman named Kathy Tar. She was near me and age. We 258 00:20:07,559 --> 00:20:11,559 were both in our mid fifties at the time, and she was had searched, 259 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:17,400 given up her summer to search for Chris Fowler in Washington, and she 260 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:22,200 announced on Facebook she was going to drive all the way down to California to 261 00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:26,680 now initiate a search for David O'Sullivan, who went missing about fifty two trail 262 00:20:26,759 --> 00:20:30,440 miles north of where Chris Silvia went missing in southern California. She was going 263 00:20:30,519 --> 00:20:33,319 to be there searching for David Sulivan at the same time I was going to 264 00:20:33,319 --> 00:20:37,599 be there searching for Chris Silvia. So I begged her to meet me for 265 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:41,079 dinner, and we started talking, and you could say once I met Kathy 266 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:45,279 Tar, I was hooked. I wanted to learn I want to learn how 267 00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:48,279 to be missing and o their families, but also wanted to learn more about 268 00:20:48,319 --> 00:20:55,400 this Facebook missing hiker group phenomena. I wanted to learn more about how the 269 00:20:55,599 --> 00:21:00,839 Internet is affecting hyperculture, and so that's where the book was born. Now, 270 00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,880 I have a perception, and I'm probably wrong here, that in a 271 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:10,599 lot of our wilderness areas there's no cell service. And so I was intrigued 272 00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:15,279 by this idea that there were Facebook missing hiker groups and that they were using 273 00:21:15,319 --> 00:21:21,720 social media as a way of communicating what they were up to, what they 274 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:26,519 were hoping to do in terms of searching for missing hikers. So social media 275 00:21:26,559 --> 00:21:30,119 actually has had a significant impact on, as you put it, hiker culture. 276 00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:37,079 What are some of the ways things are changed or impacted by new technology. 277 00:21:37,839 --> 00:21:41,960 So with the so state, maybe in a lot of ways. Right, 278 00:21:41,039 --> 00:21:45,039 we even know about the selfie phenomenon where I call it the fatal selfie. 279 00:21:45,079 --> 00:21:48,079 Right, They're trying to get a sexy selfie on the edge of the 280 00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:52,799 cliff and they fall. It's very tragic. Yeah, it's very sad. 281 00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:57,799 But in this missing hiker world, Facebook is both a blessing and a curse. 282 00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:03,920 It'll bring in false leads, It'll bring in catfishers who are trying to 283 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:07,319 get money out of the family. It'll all these fights. People will get 284 00:22:07,319 --> 00:22:11,079 on there and argue, people will say negative things, but it also will 285 00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:17,359 bring positive It'll bring support, it'll bring awareness, It'll bring in good leads. 286 00:22:17,599 --> 00:22:22,920 And in my book, Facebook proves to be a very powerful investigative tool 287 00:22:22,039 --> 00:22:26,400 that I couldn't imagine using when I was looking for my missing hiker, the 288 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:30,920 Grand Kenyan in nineteen ninety five, a clue is found via Facebook. Morgan 289 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:36,000 clements for the amateur searchers and Kathy tar that I write about, they prove 290 00:22:36,279 --> 00:22:41,039 that a witness statement is false using Facebook. It just flows lit off. 291 00:22:41,079 --> 00:22:45,119 There's just all good and negative things happening in both hiker world and the missing 292 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:49,640 person world via social media. And as I was reading this, I was 293 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:53,880 definitely seeing some of the same things that you do in your missing hiker social 294 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:59,359 media groups. We have the same sorts of dynamics on the pages that we 295 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:03,640 run for the Colonial Parkway murders case. So this was all looking very familiar 296 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:07,359 at certain points. And we two have our quiet heroes, we have our 297 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:11,319 rabble rousers, and we do get the people who are like I have this 298 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,880 big, extravagant lead, but it pans out to nothing. So this was 299 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:19,319 a very interesting book for me to read and compare the two experiences. You're 300 00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:23,200 listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our 301 00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:36,519 sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. You had talked a couple of 302 00:23:36,559 --> 00:23:41,119 minutes ago about drone technology, and that was one of the things that I 303 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:47,400 was most interested in hearing you talk about here. How has technology like drones 304 00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:52,079 helped search and rescue teams and rangers in locating missing people in hard to search 305 00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,200 areas. Earlier on I talked about your hasty search, right, This is 306 00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,519 when you just shoot out a helicopter or you shoot out some run or some 307 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,200 humans or some dogs maybe to go find this missing person. And they are 308 00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:07,960 using drones in that way and to find people in real time. And this 309 00:24:07,039 --> 00:24:11,279 can work well if you've got a person going waving their arms on a mountaintop 310 00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:15,799 and the drone can find them, or when they use it for red thermal 311 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,920 imagery and so they can find a live person because they're warmer than the environment. 312 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,200 Where my book focuses on it is with cold case drone searching. And 313 00:24:26,279 --> 00:24:32,319 so with a cold case drone search this is very esoteric at this point, 314 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:37,640 but I also feel very promising, and they are only a handful or less 315 00:24:37,839 --> 00:24:42,519 of teams trying to improve this technique. And so with a cold case drone 316 00:24:42,559 --> 00:24:48,039 grid search is you send a very good, high quality drone with a drone 317 00:24:48,039 --> 00:24:52,799 pilot that's an extremely good problem solver, and they've got a search area mapped 318 00:24:52,799 --> 00:24:56,960 out in GPS. They do it on the computer software and the drone flys 319 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,200 a grid like a lawnmower, back and forth, and the drone is taking 320 00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:07,279 photographs along that grid. You will come back with thousands of photographs. Now 321 00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:11,640 they have software that searches, but today it's just not as good as what 322 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:15,000 humans could do. This is very tedious. If I mentioned already, they 323 00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:21,559 call these humans that view these images squinters. Love it squinting at their computer 324 00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,799 screen so much winters, and they're very dedicated. Yeah, the squinters are 325 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:30,680 very dedicated, hardworking people, and so they're searching these images looking for clothing, 326 00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:36,599 equipment, gear, even bones. It's a little bit of a spoiler, 327 00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:41,000 but in the book this ends up working. They find missing people, 328 00:25:41,519 --> 00:25:48,960 using this drone coqu strone image search technique. One group Western State's Area Search 329 00:25:48,039 --> 00:25:52,079 in cooperation with the Follower Solar Foundation, which we'll probably talk about later. 330 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:59,440 They have found four people who's in this technique since twenty and nineteen. I 331 00:25:59,559 --> 00:26:03,759 was talking to my boyfriend Mark about that very thing, and he said, 332 00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,960 thousands of photographs, that's crazy, And then he said that sounds like that 333 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,119 would be the kind of thing that we should be training AI for, because 334 00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:17,319 wouldn't that be a much better use of AI's time rather than you know, 335 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:23,279 generating memes or giving high school students essays on demand. Couldn't we be training 336 00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:29,200 AI how to identify these sorts of things in photos. Yes, I believe 337 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:33,640 so. I believe the AI at this point has some limitations. There's been 338 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,960 a study it shows that today with the software, that humans could do it 339 00:26:37,039 --> 00:26:41,440 better or quicker with assimilated death scene is what I'm going to say, is 340 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:47,720 like bones of clothing. But there's promise. And I've talked to deep learning 341 00:26:48,039 --> 00:26:52,440 experts about this. They feel this is a solvable problem. But the AI 342 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:59,039 has to look at thousands, ten thousand images to learn that where's a human 343 00:26:59,079 --> 00:27:03,000 beings teach them. This is what THEMUR looks like much quicker. But there's 344 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,079 hope that we will eventually get there. Was it going to be one year, 345 00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:08,720 two year, ten years, I don't know, but I do think 346 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:14,279 there's hope that we could train at AI can learn itself how to find clues 347 00:27:14,599 --> 00:27:18,960 during a cold case. Dro grid search one thing I was surprised by, 348 00:27:18,079 --> 00:27:25,559 and I learned that in your book. I didn't realize drones could be programmed 349 00:27:26,039 --> 00:27:30,680 to fly a grid pattern, which I know is that's searching one oh one. 350 00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:36,200 I didn't realize that technology existed. It just never occurred to me. 351 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,680 I've seen drones, but I'm always seeing locally here a person flying a drone 352 00:27:41,799 --> 00:27:47,400 using a handheld controller. So it's almost it felt to me like those radio 353 00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:52,559 controlled airplanes that we'd play with when we were kids. Much more sophisticated and 354 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,359 expensive, but that's what it felt like. I didn't realize that the drone 355 00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:00,640 could go up there and fly itself back and forth and do a grid pattern 356 00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:06,480 and then come back to you with result. I didn't realize how sophisticated they've 357 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,440 become. Yes, and it's obviously it's getting almost maybe exponentially sophisticated over time. 358 00:28:12,559 --> 00:28:17,519 Like I said, we only have a few people working on this technique. 359 00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:22,000 I'm hopeful we'll have more, maybe a bigger companies doing this that can 360 00:28:22,039 --> 00:28:25,799 put more resources to it, or the government. But I've worked with the 361 00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,880 drone pilots. My husband is trained to do it, and we all worked 362 00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:32,319 the case with him, and it's tedious for them as well as winters. 363 00:28:32,319 --> 00:28:36,720 It's a hard job. It's also for the drone pilot to establish their grid 364 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,559 in the software and then to go out in the field and have the drone 365 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,640 fly the grid and hopefully safely for the drone. If we lose a drone, 366 00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,240 it's not the end of the world. It's safer than losing a person 367 00:28:47,319 --> 00:28:49,480 and the aircraft, right. But they can fully do that. It's like 368 00:28:49,519 --> 00:28:52,720 self driving cars. We're there. You just tell the drone where to go, 369 00:28:52,799 --> 00:28:56,400 it'll go and as long as it doesn't hit an obstacle or bad weather 370 00:28:56,559 --> 00:29:00,160 or something, it'll do its job for you. That does seem like a 371 00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:06,880 significant time saver. In other words, you can see the potential exists for 372 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,680 a drone search to be something that would be incredibly beneficial in some of these 373 00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:18,759 situations. You're describing, Yes, it's potentially a game changer both for the 374 00:29:18,799 --> 00:29:22,880 hasty, immediately life saving searches and then also the cold case. These teams 375 00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:27,480 could do this very safely and if they have the time, because it's not 376 00:29:27,519 --> 00:29:33,039 an urgent thing, an agency can assign a team to do this to try 377 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,160 in an attempt to sell the cold case. Now, you need certain environments. 378 00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,359 If you're in a Everglades swamp where there's just a big overstory and you 379 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,319 can't see down below, that's not going to be a great case for a 380 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:51,440 drone. Desert environments are awesome because it's just cactus and you could see real 381 00:29:51,599 --> 00:29:57,920 easily on the sparse, sparsely visitated terrain is I think potentially fall zones below 382 00:29:59,119 --> 00:30:03,119 like scree slow oaks in the mountains also might be a great place for these 383 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:07,000 drove grid searches. Was there any other technology that you came across that you're 384 00:30:07,039 --> 00:30:12,440 particularly excited about as like a new innovation in search and rescue efforts? Or 385 00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:17,160 are drones really that's the cool that's where all the cool kids are looking these 386 00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:21,519 days. Ours are more cool kids looking into this drone thing. It's I 387 00:30:21,519 --> 00:30:25,839 think it's so tedious. Maybe you need the nerdy, the uncool ones working 388 00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,720 on it because they have the dedication to be obsessive and nerdy about it. 389 00:30:30,559 --> 00:30:33,960 But the other cool thing are the GPS units, So you've got your garment, 390 00:30:34,599 --> 00:30:38,680 your spot, and these other emergency GPS locator devices. Those are going 391 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:45,480 to get better and better, equality they're heavy. Right now. Apple Phone 392 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,039 is getting a GPS track, or I think it's said the fourteens have it 393 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:53,200 already. Also air tags, those Apple tags, I see. We're going 394 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,759 to soon get to a point where you can have one of those in your 395 00:30:56,799 --> 00:31:00,720 backpack or in your jacket, and it's just that easily defined it an airplane 396 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,680 could fly over, get a signal and find you. I think we're not 397 00:31:03,839 --> 00:31:07,119 far from that, so it'll just be a matter of does every hiker have 398 00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,359 one on their person or not, As it's possible people will still get in 399 00:31:11,359 --> 00:31:14,960 trouble, they're still going to fall, they're still going to maybe die and 400 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,759 get lost, but if they have one of these locator devices on them that 401 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:23,119 we will find them. We will have fewer unsolved cases when we do have 402 00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,319 this technology. Do you think it's something that everyone is going to be open 403 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:32,000 to having on them or are there going to be hiking purists who are like, 404 00:31:32,119 --> 00:31:33,960 I'm not hiking with a cell phone, I'm not hiking with an air 405 00:31:34,039 --> 00:31:38,319 tag. We were always going to have some outliers. But I think if 406 00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,079 the tag, the GPS tag, let's call it that, if it's lightweight 407 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:48,119 enough, inconvenient, and inexpensive, I think most of your hikers will not 408 00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:52,880 have a problem carrying on this, especially when they're familiar with the hardship that 409 00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,279 will occur to their family if they're not found. YEA, when you're a 410 00:31:56,359 --> 00:31:59,799 hiker, I'm guilty of that a little bit. I'm like, hey, 411 00:32:00,119 --> 00:32:02,839 search for me. That's where I want to be. Leave me out there. 412 00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,599 But as being related to someone with the unsolved case, it's one of 413 00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,160 the worst things that can happen to a family member or a loved one is 414 00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:15,279 to not know and to not have the answers that you want, and it's 415 00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:20,519 called ambiguous loss. Especially with the missing person, you have no idea what 416 00:32:20,599 --> 00:32:22,519 happened to them or where they are, and so this is very hard for 417 00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:25,599 them. You do not want to do this to your family. If you 418 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,920 need any motivation to have one of these gpasunits, that should be it. 419 00:32:30,319 --> 00:32:36,440 Yeah, ask your mom how she will see if you went missing. It 420 00:32:36,519 --> 00:32:38,880 almost feels like a spiritual quest or something. And look, there's a lot 421 00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:43,920 of people that are out in the woods, that are out there for renewal 422 00:32:44,079 --> 00:32:49,319 and relaxation, and they might actually say what you said, Andrew, which 423 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,759 is, hey, look, if I get lost, I was where I 424 00:32:51,799 --> 00:32:55,880 wanted to be, and it's all good. Their moms and dads, brothers 425 00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:00,920 and sisters, their husbands, wives, partners might not feel the same way, 426 00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:07,839 particularly as the days and weeks, and in our example, months and 427 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:12,359 years go by. It's hard. Yeah, at the other end of that 428 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,000 go ahead, Yes, and with a missing person there's the emotional thing, 429 00:33:15,039 --> 00:33:20,039 which is the worst of course, but there's also legal and financial problems because 430 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,720 the person can't be declared dead and so if you're a bread winner, that 431 00:33:23,759 --> 00:33:30,079 which has happened, and so your spouse can't get access to your insurance to 432 00:33:30,119 --> 00:33:36,119 take care of your kids because you're just missing. So it's a huge problem 433 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,079 to have a family member that's missing on several different levels. Yeah, I 434 00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:43,759 was thinking about that while you were using that example. I thought you're right. 435 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,720 If someone went out, let's say, and they're the breadwinner and they've 436 00:33:46,759 --> 00:33:52,720 got a half a million dollar insurance policy. Heaven forbid something happens to them. 437 00:33:52,039 --> 00:33:57,759 They want to make sure their spouse and kids are provided for, and 438 00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,640 a lot of times people have, But twenty five year old son now who's 439 00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,759 in law school. When he was a little bit younger, my ex wife 440 00:34:04,799 --> 00:34:07,359 and I would talk about, oh, we want to make sure that Chris 441 00:34:07,359 --> 00:34:10,079 has enough money to go to school or do whatever he wants to do. 442 00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:15,199 So there's always this provide for your family motivation, which I think is valid. 443 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:22,119 And yet if you go missing, you're absolutely right the insurance company's not 444 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:23,960 going to pay off. They're going to say Joe or Jane could come through 445 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:29,880 the door tomorrow and he or she'll be fine, or maybe they're in hiding 446 00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,599 or whatever. There's a lot of bizarre stories out there. I want to 447 00:34:34,639 --> 00:34:39,679 shift back to Chris, David and Sherpa for a second, and I hope 448 00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:44,559 this doesn't come across as an indelicate question, but I think we can be 449 00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:49,679 frank about it. With regard to the missing men, is the goal now 450 00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:54,960 one of recovery or is it still a rescue operation. Do you think it's 451 00:34:55,039 --> 00:35:00,719 possible for any of the men to have survived for this long and woods and 452 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:06,920 it's just a matter of finding them. From a professional searcher point of view, 453 00:35:07,199 --> 00:35:09,599 yes, it will definitely be recovery, and it's been that for a 454 00:35:09,639 --> 00:35:15,920 long time. A professional searcher starts to think recovery pretty quickly. There's something 455 00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:21,119 called the survival rule of threes. You can live three minutes without oxygen and 456 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,719 three days without water, and three weeks without food, and then shelter can 457 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:30,280 be as short as three hours if it's freezing out or you're underwater and where's 458 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:36,239 cold. This becomes recovery situation fairly quickly. Now with these cases, though, 459 00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,920 the hard part is, especially when you don't have answers and you don't 460 00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:45,159 have a body, is that could they possibly be voluntarily missing? You know, 461 00:35:45,199 --> 00:35:50,079 without spooning it too much. One of the Hyders in particular, there's 462 00:35:50,519 --> 00:35:55,000 some circumstances that suggest that it's possible that this is someone who just went voluntarily 463 00:35:55,079 --> 00:36:00,400 missing. You know that you're familiar with Chris McCandless in Alaska into the wild 464 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:05,800 people go. Did they go the candless? Did they burn all their possessions 465 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,000 and just go off and live under another name? It does happen. I 466 00:36:09,039 --> 00:36:13,880 do think that's the one of the least likely. There's a low percentage that 467 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:19,840 happened, but it does remain an intriguing possibility for me for one of them 468 00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:22,679 missing. I was going to ask, do you think that is what happened 469 00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:30,400 to Chris. I don't have affirm this happened to any of them. Also, 470 00:36:30,159 --> 00:36:36,280 Chris Fowler and David Osulivan, there was snowy conditions and cold conditions that 471 00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:40,119 lead me to think that was more likely an environmental accident occurred in their case. 472 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:45,760 With Chris Sylvia, I'm very much more perplexed. Are there a lot 473 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:52,159 of people hiking alone in America's wilderness? Yes, I hike alone, and 474 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:58,039 I'm going to gett solo hiking. But then you'll hear you are slightly more 475 00:36:58,079 --> 00:37:00,239 at risk. If you're a solo hiker, you're slightly more at risks of 476 00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:06,320 trouble or to die out there. Interesting enough, these statistics are a little 477 00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:10,719 bit older. But a solo male is less likely to survive a perilous counter 478 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:15,440 and outdoors than a solo female. So that's counterintuitive to a lot of people. 479 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:20,119 So yes, there is more risk. But if you're a person who 480 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,199 joys sol to solo hiking. It's a risk worth taking. Now you can 481 00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:30,559 mitigate that risk by planning better and then maybe not doing the hardest core mountain 482 00:37:30,599 --> 00:37:34,480 climbing thing alone. I'm going to go down to your local park for a 483 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,559 few miles alone. That's see what I mean. It's nuanced. But yeah, 484 00:37:37,559 --> 00:37:40,760 a lot of people hikers love to go hike alone, all of them. 485 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:45,360 But there are thousands if not men as that did. When you hike 486 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,679 the at were you by yourself or did you have a companion with you? 487 00:37:49,679 --> 00:37:52,639 I was a solo hike of the I thought to trail. I did that 488 00:37:52,639 --> 00:37:58,079 in nineteen ninety nine for cell phone smartphones, and I wanted to hike it 489 00:37:58,119 --> 00:38:01,239 alone. Now, the longest trails are a very social experience. Though there's 490 00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:06,280 a trail culture. Then there's also what they call the trammelie, the trail 491 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,159 family, and people will look out for you and more on you, so 492 00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:14,000 you don't Today you're probably not as alone as you want to be. You 493 00:38:14,039 --> 00:38:16,360 want to be more alone than you are because there's more crowds on the trails. 494 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,039 Do you want to fess up as to what your trail name was? 495 00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,400 Yes, it was Tennessee Walker, Tennessee Walker yeah, I don't know if 496 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:30,800 you guys are hearing an accent now Tennessee that sounds like a brand of alcohol. 497 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:42,480 It does. I think there's a horse horses, and even the whiskey 498 00:38:42,559 --> 00:38:47,280 I think is named for the Tennessee horse walking horses. By the way, 499 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,960 we failed to ask you. I know you have a very proud history with 500 00:38:52,079 --> 00:38:55,599 the Park Service. Tell us your history about where you started with the Park 501 00:38:55,719 --> 00:39:00,719 Service and some of the places you served. Yeah. So I always wanted 502 00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,880 to work in the outdoors and I loved animals, So I got a degree 503 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,320 four street from the University of Tennessee. Pretty quickly got a job as a 504 00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:14,000 law enforcement park ranger at Cape Patters National Seashore in North Carolina. I wrote 505 00:39:14,039 --> 00:39:17,119 a book about this called Ranger Confidential, around my experience with the Park Service. 506 00:39:17,679 --> 00:39:22,280 From Cape Patteris, I went to Zion National Park in Utah, then 507 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:27,800 Yosemite National Park in California, and then I ended my career at Green Cayne 508 00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,159 National Park in Arizona. All of these places are so stone cold beautiful, 509 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:36,599 as you described each one. Briefly, I thought, oh, I want 510 00:39:36,639 --> 00:39:38,320 to be there, and then move on to the next one. I'd be 511 00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,400 like, oh, no, I want to be there too. This had 512 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,159 to be pretty amazing. It was. I fell in love with it really 513 00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:51,199 quickly. You know. I was idealistic about the job. But what happens. 514 00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,679 I was a protection ranger, and that's to protect the park from the 515 00:39:53,679 --> 00:39:58,239 people, protect the people from the park, and protect the people from each 516 00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:02,440 other. Park rangers orn't every which way trying to protect everything things that sometimes 517 00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:06,800 they want to kill each other. You are caught in the middle. I 518 00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:13,159 was a protection ranger is often always does wildwide for our structural far ems. 519 00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,320 I was a medic and search and rescue as we've talked about. So there's 520 00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:21,599 a lot of heavy duties on one set of shoulder for the park ranger. 521 00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:23,559 Gee, if I'm going to go hiking, I'm going to ask you if 522 00:40:23,559 --> 00:40:28,480 I can go with you, because I feel a lot safer all the way 523 00:40:28,519 --> 00:40:32,840 around. There's a lot of experience there. Before we go, I want 524 00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:37,400 you to talk to us a little bit about the work that the fouler O'Sullivan 525 00:40:37,519 --> 00:40:42,360 Foundation is doing and how we can assist you and how our listeners can assist 526 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,840 you in that work. Yeah, that's one of the happy endings in Treble 527 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,360 Loss is a foundation is created by Kathy Tarr, one of these quiet heroes, 528 00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:53,400 and it's called the foul Sullivan Foundation, named after Chris Speller and David 529 00:40:53,400 --> 00:41:00,719 O'Sullivan. This foundation is dedicated to helping families of missing hikers and venning hikers 530 00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,360 from going missing in the first place. They have a program where you can 531 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:09,280 donate a GPS unit and they will give that in a lottery system to drew 532 00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:14,119 hiker, so that a throker that couldn't afford one can have one of these 533 00:41:14,119 --> 00:41:19,599 while they hike. They also initiate searches. They've found several people on their 534 00:41:19,639 --> 00:41:23,000 searches and they're searching for people today using this drone technique we talked about. 535 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:27,800 They have trained pilots, said, they've trained to do this, and so 536 00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:34,360 yeah, go check them out. That's on fof found fofound dot com. 537 00:41:35,119 --> 00:41:38,320 So excellent and so what's next for you in terms of projects? This is 538 00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:44,280 a this is a beautiful book, very ambitious. Are you jumping right into 539 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:49,000 something else or are you taking time to pursue other projects. I'm taking time 540 00:41:49,079 --> 00:41:52,440 off. That was I've worked really hard on that book. I had some 541 00:41:52,519 --> 00:41:57,840 my own adversity in the book, which I write about and so I still 542 00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,119 help out with the foundation from time to time. I'm in a search for 543 00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:06,000 missing people for coming time, but I'm also taking a break to recover, 544 00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,639 rest and recover myself for now. So does that mean you go for walks 545 00:42:08,679 --> 00:42:12,800 in the woods. I go for walks alone in the woods. Yes. 546 00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,599 The book is Trail of the Lost, the relentless search to bring home the 547 00:42:16,599 --> 00:42:21,920 missing hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. Andrea, where can everybody find your 548 00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,480 book? It's pretty much everywhere, Deadly, Amazon, your local book favorite 549 00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:29,159 bookstore. You should be able to find it. Definitely. You can you 550 00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,480 order it for sure. Thank you so much for joining us, Andrea. 551 00:42:32,519 --> 00:42:36,559 We love the book and we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. 552 00:42:37,079 --> 00:42:42,880 Yeah, thanks for having me work. We will try. That is 553 00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,039 going to do it for this episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank you so 554 00:42:45,119 --> 00:42:59,599 much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a 555 00:42:59,639 --> 00:43:06,280 product of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas 556 00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,480 and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music 557 00:43:10,599 --> 00:43:15,719 is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space 558 00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:21,400 Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You 559 00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:25,199 can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway murders on Facebook, and finally, 560 00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:30,280 you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas. Five six. 561 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:32,840 Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder