Speaker 1: In August of nineteen ninety six, twenty year old Michael
Speaker 1: Madden packed his car early, left a note for his family,
Speaker 1: and he and his dog set off towards the forest.
Speaker 1: Only one of them would return. I'm Danielle, I'm Megan,
Speaker 1: and this is off the trails.
Speaker 2: I woke up this morning.
Speaker 1: Everything was icy, and it's April twentieth, cut and done
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: Oh I bet I just.
Speaker 1: Brought out blankets to cover the bees, cover the plants,
Speaker 1: all those things.
Speaker 3: It's going to be in the twenties again tonight. So
Speaker 3: you got a nice little taste of spring weather. And
Speaker 3: then it said, oh, hold on, we're not completely done
Speaker 3: with winter yet.
Speaker 1: I truly fell for false spring this year because maybe
Speaker 1: we can happen ago. I turned back on the outside
Speaker 1: water so that I could use it to fill the
Speaker 1: duck pool and all that.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't realize it was going to be freezing.
Speaker 1: And now, of course I have a little crack in
Speaker 1: my outside pipe with little leaks. Now it's been turned
Speaker 1: off again, looking forward to fixing that plumbing issue.
Speaker 2: That's not great. Frozen all right.
Speaker 1: So before we get into today's story, if you want
Speaker 1: to do like a little location profile. The Stantuslast National Forests,
Speaker 1: which I think we have traveled here before, covers nearly
Speaker 1: a million acres of the central Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.
Speaker 1: Areas in this forest can be very remote, with dense
Speaker 1: pine forest, granite outcroppings, and rivers cold enough to make
Speaker 1: you suver any time of year.
Speaker 3: I mean, if waters below like eighty five degrees or shivering,
Speaker 3: You're like, if it is not a hot shower, it
Speaker 3: is too cold. We have obviously the springs here that'll
Speaker 3: always stay around like seventy two degrees year round, and
Speaker 3: I mean granted on a very very hot day it
Speaker 3: is refreshing, but it still bites because it's just cold.
Speaker 3: It's crisp and cold.
Speaker 2: Over the winter.
Speaker 1: Again, going back to frozen pipes, my shower had the
Speaker 1: hot water pipe frozen, and I like felt the cold
Speaker 1: water and I was like, yeah, that's cold, but I
Speaker 1: could take a real quick shower in that until you
Speaker 1: put your body in it. And I was like, this
Speaker 1: is the worst decision I've ever made. But now I
Speaker 1: got to commit to it because I got.
Speaker 2: To my hair is partially wet. I just got to
Speaker 2: get through it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I commend those people who take cold
Speaker 3: showers or turn their shower cold at the end of
Speaker 3: it before they get out. I've tried it before, but
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm keeping it cold long enough. But
Speaker 3: you know, a for effort.
Speaker 1: Maybe next year. No, I don't even want to try.
Speaker 1: It's not even worth it to me. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be that person. All right, But we're going to
Speaker 1: be going to sand Bar Flat, which is a campground
Speaker 1: in this forest that sits along the Santa Slaus River.
Speaker 1: This campground is remote, but it's not totally inaccessible.
Speaker 2: You can get there by road.
Speaker 1: It sounds like there's a lot of switchbacks, and clearly
Speaker 1: it's not paved.
Speaker 2: I read some reviews and people were.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I wouldn't take just any old vehicle out
Speaker 1: there unless you want your suspension wrecked and scratches and
Speaker 1: dents and all kinds of mayhem.
Speaker 2: But you can drive out there if you choose to.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's nice because people who want to go out
Speaker 1: there can get out there without having to be dropped
Speaker 1: by a bush plane. But it still is off the
Speaker 1: veient path and definitely remote, and of course self service
Speaker 1: is essentially non existent. What you're out there. Today's story
Speaker 1: takes place in nineteen ninety six. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: probably had cell phones, so kind of a moot point,
Speaker 1: but that's okay. In the summer of nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: this was a place that you would expect to find
Speaker 1: Michael Madden. He was a student at Humboldt State University,
Speaker 1: and I saw that he was studying something in the
Speaker 1: biology field, and he was hoping to go on to
Speaker 1: become a forest ranger at some point.
Speaker 2: That was his ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: The woods and the outdoors weren't just an interest for him.
Speaker 1: I bet they were his home away from home, if
Speaker 1: not his real first home. Right on the morning of
Speaker 1: August tenth, he left his family's home, likely around five am.
Speaker 1: He didn't wake anybody up. He left a note for
Speaker 1: his mom telling her where he was going. I would
Speaker 1: assume that if he was living or staying with his family,
Speaker 1: they probably already knew that he was going away. I
Speaker 1: would hope not just like, oh, here's a note, I'm
Speaker 1: be gone the next seven days.
Speaker 3: Well, especially if it sounds like he took a dog
Speaker 3: with him, if it's a family dog or even just
Speaker 3: a dog that's living at that house, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: is that dog also going to be gone for seven?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Right, right?
Speaker 1: I just thought it was funny that all the sources
Speaker 1: were like, he left a note, but I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: His mom probably knew. Note was maybe like just a
Speaker 2: follow up. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: He tossed his gear into his Chevy Cavalier, which I
Speaker 1: looked that car up because I don't really know what
Speaker 1: that looks like, and that is the quintessential nineties vehicle
Speaker 1: for like teenagers in early twenties.
Speaker 3: I had one, did you? Yeah? I had one two
Speaker 3: thousand and five. It was my first Carkay.
Speaker 2: But was it an older one?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah, I loved her.
Speaker 2: What was her name?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Oh, all right, some people name their cars,
Speaker 3: but like that car through it and she took it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's why I'm sure he felt comfortable taking
Speaker 3: his and going out to this location.
Speaker 1: Mike and his dog Matilda were on the road wickiq
Speaker 1: Or on the road before the sun was even fully up.
Speaker 1: He was heading to Sandbar Flat and some friends would
Speaker 1: be meeting him there in a day or so. Mike
Speaker 1: wanted to get a head start to set up camp
Speaker 1: spend some quiet time alone and probably try and get
Speaker 1: some fishing in This area is said to be a
Speaker 1: really good fishing spot. Mike and his dad had camped
Speaker 1: and fished in the area at least several times, if
Speaker 1: not lots of times before, and I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: they always stayed at that same campground, But either way,
Speaker 1: he was going somewhere where he wasn't in unfamiliar terrain, right,
Speaker 1: he definitely had experience and familiarity with this place. On
Speaker 1: August twelfth, his friends arrived at the campground just after
Speaker 1: two in the morning, which is definitely not an ideal
Speaker 1: time of night to be driving through the woods. But
Speaker 1: thinking back to going anywhere with a group in later
Speaker 1: teens early twenties, I feel like that is just the
Speaker 1: way it goes, because somebody always has to work late.
Speaker 1: They forgot to ask a Friday night off, so they
Speaker 1: had to work till ten o'clock, and then you have
Speaker 1: to jenga everybody's gear because they probably didn't pack in advance,
Speaker 1: so it was like scramble at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: get in the car, drive a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Did you mean Tetris?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: When I say Jena, yeah, I mean I still like that,
Speaker 1: but taking it out is like Jenda.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, packing it like Tetris, trying to unload it like Jenga.
Speaker 1: Yup, and they figured, since Mike had already gotten a
Speaker 1: head start, at least the camp would be somewhat situated
Speaker 1: and they could roll in and then set up whatever
Speaker 1: else need to be done in the morning. They made
Speaker 1: their way to the spot, but when they got there,
Speaker 1: Mike wasn't there. They looked around and it was very
Speaker 1: apparent that Matilda wasn't around either.
Speaker 3: Which if they had, if they had shown up during
Speaker 3: the day or just more reasonable hours, I could see
Speaker 3: that being less concerning because oh, he could just be
Speaker 3: venturing out somewhere in the area, but showing up at
Speaker 3: two am, he should be there.
Speaker 1: And they knew this was the right spot because there
Speaker 1: was a freshly made fire and they did identify year
Speaker 1: at the site as belonging to Mike, and the fire
Speaker 1: was fresh enough that it seemed like someone had likely
Speaker 1: recently been sitting there, not long before they arrived.
Speaker 3: Okay, so there was remnants of a freshly put out fire,
Speaker 3: there was some gear there, but Mike, Matilda, and the
Speaker 3: car were currently gone.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing. About the car.
Speaker 1: None of the sources specifically mention the vehicle detail, which
Speaker 1: is huge to me. If the car is still of
Speaker 1: the campsite when the friends arrive, that would have ruled
Speaker 1: out the idea that Mike was nearby. But if it
Speaker 1: wasn't there, that opens a whole other set of questions.
Speaker 1: All of the sources that I saw, they consistently said
Speaker 1: there was a freshly made fire and Mike's gear there,
Speaker 1: which is just so weird. Yeah, the car and license
Speaker 1: plate weren't listed on any of the missing Persons sites,
Speaker 1: so I have to assume based on that the vehicle
Speaker 1: was accounted for, whether it was at the campsite that
Speaker 1: night or found shortly thereafter, because in other cases we've
Speaker 1: covered where people have just disappeared, their vehicles are listed
Speaker 1: along their license plate. So I think if the car
Speaker 1: wasn't accounted for, it would be mentioned. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's not really spelled out in anything that I saw,
Speaker 1: whether it was there or not there, which would have
Speaker 1: been really helpful to know. If the car was there,
Speaker 1: I would say their car was still here, versus like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see they're cooler in their backpacker here, right, So
Speaker 1: I just thought that was kind of a strange detail
Speaker 1: or lack of detail. As the friends were starting to
Speaker 1: wonder where Mike, like really wonder where Mike was, and
Speaker 1: they were probably unloading some of their gear, just kind
Speaker 1: of assessing the situation. A man walks out of the woods,
Speaker 1: just emerging from the darkness, and if that's not creepy enough,
Speaker 1: he was also carrying a forty five automatic pistol.
Speaker 3: Super suspicious.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yep.
Speaker 1: I mean, a stranger lurking at the edge of the
Speaker 1: woods in the middle of the night is pretty concerning
Speaker 1: in its own right.
Speaker 2: But then to be like, hey, I also have a gun.
Speaker 3: Great, and it's right near where your friend is supposed
Speaker 3: to be set up for camp and they're missing, and
Speaker 3: all of that together just probably doesn't sit well.
Speaker 1: No, very uncomfortable. The first thing this guy says to
Speaker 1: Mike's friends was are you looking for Mikey? And that
Speaker 1: immediately felt weird to his friends because Mike never went
Speaker 1: by Mikey. That wasn't his nickname. His friends had never
Speaker 1: heard anybody refer.
Speaker 2: To him as Mikey. He was Michael or Mike. That's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I call my brother Mikey when I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be irritating, but nobody else calls him that.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 3: Well, if I showed up to a campsite that you're
Speaker 3: supposed to be at and some man comes out of
Speaker 3: the woods with a gun and says you look him
Speaker 3: for Danny, I'd be like, uh.
Speaker 2: Who excuse you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole situation is so weird. For the next
Speaker 1: six hours, while Mike's friends were waiting at the campsite
Speaker 1: hoping that Mike was going to return, this guy, who
Speaker 1: was later identified as Joseph Tyne, was just hanging out
Speaker 1: throughout those six hours. He was just hanging out. He
Speaker 1: repeatedly was cocking the gun. He never pointed at anybody,
Speaker 1: he never fired it, just casually cocking his gun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, weird.
Speaker 1: I don't know any setting where that would be not
Speaker 1: unsettling because it's like it's like, okay, like if.
Speaker 2: We were sitting around like daylight of the campfire, No,
Speaker 2: it's still be weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Mike's friends also noticed that it looked like this guy
Speaker 1: appeared to be wearing Mike's boots.
Speaker 3: So many things are just not yeah giving me good
Speaker 3: like feelings about this now.
Speaker 1: They would later report that detail to the police when
Speaker 1: they would ultimately report Mike missing in the daylight hours,
Speaker 1: but it was never confirmed if the boots the man
Speaker 1: was wearing belonged to Mike or not, which okay, what
Speaker 1: if they're just tan.
Speaker 2: Like kind of like work boot style like Timberlain.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, like a very like common or popular type
Speaker 3: of boot, or just a very kind of generic type
Speaker 3: of boot.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm sure you can picture winter ll Bean boots
Speaker 1: right those look like I mean, tons of other brands
Speaker 1: have boots that look just like that, and tons of
Speaker 1: people have probably even the same brand. But still, it
Speaker 1: was unnerving enough that they noted it. I find it
Speaker 1: very strange. But there were no additional details about what
Speaker 1: transpired that night while everyone just sat around in the darkness,
Speaker 1: while Mike was Mia and this stranger Joseph played with
Speaker 1: his gun and hung around uninvited, Like, I need to
Speaker 1: know what was going on? Did they ask him to
Speaker 1: leave and he didn't? Did they just hope that he
Speaker 1: would leave? Did they have campfire chats to get to
Speaker 1: know each other? Like, what was happening? That's a long time.
Speaker 3: It is a long time. And the fact that he
Speaker 3: referred to him as Mikey I would be grilling him
Speaker 3: on other details to be like, was that just did
Speaker 3: they meet each other in passing so he just caught
Speaker 3: his name in that way, or did he actually encounter
Speaker 3: my friend and has more information and knows more about him,
Speaker 3: And do I need to get out of here and
Speaker 3: report this.
Speaker 1: I'm unsure if the friends were just because he had
Speaker 1: a gun, just very uncomfortable and they didn't want.
Speaker 2: To push this guy, which I think is fair. You know,
Speaker 2: did somebody like say like, oh, so tired, we should
Speaker 2: turn in and he was like, no, We're staying up.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I want more information about this whole situation, the social setting.
Speaker 1: I want to know about the uncomfortable trying to get
Speaker 1: somebody to leave without asking them to leave.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to be a fly on the wall
Speaker 3: of this hole of how this all unfolded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's reported missing?
Speaker 1: The Sheriff's apartment responded with a search and rescue team
Speaker 1: or several search and rescue teams. They brought in divers,
Speaker 1: they brought in dogs, but despite an extensive search, nothing
Speaker 1: was found, not even any footprints that could have told
Speaker 1: them which direction Mike could have gone in.
Speaker 2: There was nothing to indicate what could have happened.
Speaker 1: Four days after Mike disappeared, Matilda returned to the campsite.
Speaker 1: She was definitely dehydrated, and it sounds like she was
Speaker 1: kind of out of sorts. I saw her described as disoriented,
Speaker 1: which I was trying to decide if a dog can
Speaker 1: really be disoriented, But I guess yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's impressive that she made it back to
Speaker 3: this campsite. I mean, we don't know where she was.
Speaker 3: I assume we're not privy to that at least yet.
Speaker 3: But she could only be so disoriented if she was
Speaker 3: able to find her way back to where she was.
Speaker 3: But if she's dehydrated, if she's emaciated, and if she
Speaker 3: saw something happen to her owner, and she's coming back
Speaker 3: sort of acting restless or agitated or just something that
Speaker 3: seems out of character, maybe that's what it's referring to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of how I interpreted it because I'm like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if she made it back to camp, she was pretty
Speaker 1: well oriented in my opinion, but out of sorts or distressed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think those words probably make more sense. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: searchers were hoping that she could lead them back to
Speaker 1: wherever mic was, and they tried to get her to
Speaker 1: do that, but there's no luck. The dog had returned,
Speaker 1: but Mike didn't. She had survived whatever happened and made
Speaker 1: it back to camp on her own. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people would love to be able to communicate
Speaker 1: with animals, just to have a chat with them, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure in these situations it must be so frustrating
Speaker 1: to have a witness to whatever happened. Whether it was
Speaker 1: an accident or Mike did leave on his own, we
Speaker 1: have no idea, but it would be great if his
Speaker 1: dog could share what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There are also accounts from Mike's brother suggesting that there
Speaker 1: was at least one witness who reported that Mike was
Speaker 1: actually seen at a cabin near Pinecrest, not Sandbar Flat,
Speaker 1: on the day he disappeared. That wasn't ever proven, but
Speaker 1: if that is true, it means whatever happened may not
Speaker 1: have started at the campsite, which means the point of
Speaker 1: origin for the search may have been off. I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure what the distance between this cabin and the
Speaker 1: campsite would have been, but in a search like that,
Speaker 1: not having the correct starting point obviously can make a
Speaker 1: big difference. Right, Nine months after Mike vanished, investigators gave
Speaker 1: Joseph Tyne a polygraph. The results were never made public,
Speaker 1: and he was never charged in connection with Mike's disappearance.
Speaker 1: So presumably, I don't know, you can't really get anything
Speaker 1: just because just because you fail a polygraph doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they have any additional they have any evidence against you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then like I go back to the boots.
Speaker 3: Of course, you can't just hijack someone's boots just because
Speaker 3: they look like someone you know, like, but it I'd
Speaker 3: be interested if they had been able to DNA test
Speaker 3: those boots that he was wearing, if they would have
Speaker 3: had Mike's DNA on them, you.
Speaker 2: Know, or even just check the size, right.
Speaker 3: Like anything to officially be able to rule them out
Speaker 3: as belonging to him or not. Right.
Speaker 1: Records indicated that his gun was checked and no shells
Speaker 1: had been spent at the time of Mike's disappearance, although
Speaker 1: I don't know how that could be proven because couldn't
Speaker 1: he have just reloaded.
Speaker 3: I think there's probably more trace evidence with a firearm
Speaker 3: where they'd be able to see.
Speaker 1: They didn't say, there was no mention of them doing
Speaker 1: any GSR testing, which which I would think would be
Speaker 1: more relevant to has this gun been recently fired than
Speaker 1: do or all the bullets accounted for, because somebody could reload.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But also if there was an encounter between him
Speaker 3: and Mike and there was foul play involved, he could
Speaker 3: have even just used that gun as intimidation, yeah, to
Speaker 3: get Mike to do what he wanted him to do,
Speaker 3: without needing to actually fire any rounds.
Speaker 2: After no new.
Speaker 1: Information came to light, investigators did ultimately say that they
Speaker 1: believed that Mike was the victim of foul play and
Speaker 1: likely dead. Investigators have never closed the case, but without
Speaker 1: any new information, the case went cold. Since his disappearance,
Speaker 1: few distinct theories have emerged online and elsewhere about what
Speaker 1: may have happened to Mike. The first one, obviously being
Speaker 1: Joseph Tyne, is probably the biggest, most discussed theory for
Speaker 1: good reason. A man appears in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night when your friend happens to be missing from where
Speaker 1: they should be. This guy has a gun, using a
Speaker 1: nickname very close to your missing friend's name, and possibly
Speaker 1: wearing the missing person's boots, and then spend six hours
Speaker 1: uncomfortably hanging around.
Speaker 2: I do say that's that's a weird situation. Yeah, that's suspicious,
Speaker 2: and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: That's not behavior that would be typical of someone who
Speaker 1: just stumbled onto the wrong campsite.
Speaker 3: Well, also, if someone just came out of the woodworks
Speaker 3: like that and your friend is missing, wouldn't you want
Speaker 3: to be out looking for him? And would that person
Speaker 3: join in and be like, oh, I mean, I can
Speaker 3: help you look for your friend. I give a little
Speaker 3: bit of inside like I didn't see him, I've been
Speaker 3: out here since whatever time, or I did see him,
Speaker 3: but that was like five hours ago and I saw
Speaker 3: walking in this direction, or as you said, I'm so
Speaker 3: curious what happened in those six hours.
Speaker 1: Right, because I would likely want to continue looking for
Speaker 1: my friend or calling for my friend. And I do
Speaker 1: wonder if perhaps prior to Joseph emerging from the woods,
Speaker 1: if they were calling out for Mike or calling for
Speaker 1: Matilda even and did he hear the people calling and
Speaker 1: did he misshear Michael or Mike or Matilda and get mikey.
Speaker 2: Out of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, like I don't know, there's just there's
Speaker 1: just not enough information. It's very weird because even if
Speaker 1: you were like, oh, hey, you sound like you're distressed.
Speaker 1: I hear you calling for someone, Then what are you
Speaker 1: gonna help them?
Speaker 2: Or are you just gonna lurk?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 1: Investigators clearly felt that this behavior was suspicious enough to
Speaker 1: administer a polygraph test, but again there were were never released,
Speaker 1: so we really have no idea if that works for
Speaker 1: or against him, right, and the absence of spent shells
Speaker 1: in his gun doesn't.
Speaker 2: Really clear him.
Speaker 1: It just means if something did happen, it may not
Speaker 1: have involved a gun. Like you said, he may have
Speaker 1: just used it for coercion versus utilizing it as using
Speaker 1: it like a gun.
Speaker 2: I guess I didn't see.
Speaker 1: A description or a physical description of Joseph, but Mike
Speaker 1: wasn't a small guy. He was around six to one
Speaker 1: two hundred pounds, so the presence of a gun can
Speaker 1: obviously make a size difference disappear if you are the
Speaker 1: smaller person with a weapon.
Speaker 3: So how busy was this campground? Was it an established campground?
Speaker 3: Was it like a kind of more primitive or dispersed
Speaker 3: camp site or campground?
Speaker 2: So at least currently it's one.
Speaker 1: Of those first come, first serve I think it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, really cheap, like twelve dollars or something
Speaker 1: really really inexpensive.
Speaker 2: I think it is on the smaller side.
Speaker 1: But I didn't see any indication as to how busy
Speaker 1: it was this particular night. I did see people in
Speaker 1: the last few years talking about how the weekends now
Speaker 1: are really busy and suggesting like go during the week
Speaker 1: if you want to avoid people, But I don't know
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: Was that the same situation, right, Okay, so yeah, I
Speaker 3: was curious if there were other campers out there that
Speaker 3: night as well who had seen anything or heard anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty basic campground.
Speaker 1: I think there is water on site and outhouses, but
Speaker 1: there's not. I didn't see anything about like running showers
Speaker 1: or any other amenities.
Speaker 2: Just very big.
Speaker 1: Okay, Obviously it is possible that Mike had an accident
Speaker 1: of some kind. Santaslav's National Forest is very rugged. It
Speaker 1: has that river cut terrain, and that river runs cold
Speaker 1: and fast. We know how easy it can be to
Speaker 1: slip on any type of wet rock, and it can
Speaker 1: be very difficult to self rescue once someone's in the water.
Speaker 1: Several people even noted in their Yelp reviews of this
Speaker 1: campground that they felt that this was not a campground
Speaker 1: for families with kids. Somebody else even noted that dogs
Speaker 1: should be kept on a leash because of how dangerous
Speaker 1: this river was. So or is oh, I think this
Speaker 1: is the first time that I've read a review of
Speaker 1: a campground and had people say make sure your dog's
Speaker 1: on a leash, or don't bring your dog and just
Speaker 1: don't bring your kids.
Speaker 3: Yikes. Yeah, that's pretty telling as to like you said, dangerous,
Speaker 3: it could potentially be.
Speaker 1: It's also mentioned that the access road to the campground
Speaker 1: is a very tough drive and shouldn't be attempted at night,
Speaker 1: which I found interesting because we know Mike's friends arrived
Speaker 1: in the middle of the nite, and even without the river,
Speaker 1: this forest is definitely big enough that search teams evel
Speaker 1: with dogs could have missed something. Sources indicated the search
Speaker 1: was extensive, but there were very few details available about
Speaker 1: the search itself, so it's really hard to say if
Speaker 1: it was well executed or really was extensive because there
Speaker 1: was just no details. A lot of times we hear
Speaker 1: the search was X amount of days, and this many
Speaker 1: agencies and this many people but I didn't have any
Speaker 1: stats like that on this case.
Speaker 2: Okay, they were like, we did a good job. Trust us.
Speaker 3: You don't need more than that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they didn't do a good job, but
Speaker 1: there was just no additional information to make me agree
Speaker 1: that it was a good job.
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes you'll go on to different agency sites, whether
Speaker 3: they're sharing on social media, whether it's news headlines that
Speaker 3: are keeping up with the status of a search or
Speaker 3: progress of a search, or even like the National Park Service,
Speaker 3: they'll update their bulletins if there's an active search going on,
Speaker 3: and so you actually get those details where they'll talk
Speaker 3: about the different agencies that were involved, the weather that
Speaker 3: they were dealing with, the times that it started. Like,
Speaker 3: they can get really detail oriented, which adds a lot
Speaker 3: of helpful context to these missing persons cases. And so
Speaker 3: when you come across one like this where they're just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we searched, You're like, okay, but can you give more right?
Speaker 2: And I do wonder.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously nineteen ninety six was pre social media, but.
Speaker 2: I do wonder.
Speaker 1: The statistics are that the majority of missing people are
Speaker 1: found within twenty four hours, and then even more are
Speaker 1: found within the first forty eight hours in these situations.
Speaker 1: So I do wonder if it was one of those
Speaker 1: situations where they're like, oh, we'll find them, we'll find them,
Speaker 1: and they weren't expecting to have to.
Speaker 2: Report to the media or do anything of that nature.
Speaker 1: And I think now people kind of gather more information
Speaker 1: expecting to have to share it or wanting to share
Speaker 1: it at some point, but maybe that just wasn't the
Speaker 1: case here. They were like, you know what, We're gonna
Speaker 1: find this guy in a couple hours and that's going
Speaker 1: to be it.
Speaker 2: So there's plenty.
Speaker 1: Of situations where this could have been an unfortunate accident
Speaker 1: that Mike just befel, some sort of misadventure.
Speaker 2: But the problem with that is Joseph Time.
Speaker 1: You can explain a ray, explain away pretty much everything else.
Speaker 2: But for us to believe that it.
Speaker 1: Was just an accident, we would have to then assume
Speaker 1: that Joseph Time coming out of the woods at Mike's
Speaker 1: campsite is just a coincidence.
Speaker 3: And also where did he come from, because if this
Speaker 3: is a remote area, you know, did he have a
Speaker 3: campsite set up somewhere? Was he just lurking in the
Speaker 3: woods looking for a crime of opportunity, just hoping that
Speaker 3: he'd come across someone who he felt comfortable overtaking. It's
Speaker 3: just so it's almost such like a bizarre circumstance. To
Speaker 3: try to make sense.
Speaker 1: Of this situation is just so very strange, because if
Speaker 1: you did just commit a crime, I don't know that
Speaker 1: you would be inclined to then hang around with the
Speaker 1: victim's friends or associates for the night, true.
Speaker 3: To then think about the people who commit a crime
Speaker 3: and then you see them like in the background of
Speaker 3: like the uh press releases and stuff, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's my work. There are weirdos like that who
Speaker 3: do that. And so if he had done something, if
Speaker 3: he had he had something to do with what happened
Speaker 3: to Mike, and whether he intentionally came across the friends
Speaker 3: or not, then he's just sitting there kind of in
Speaker 3: a sick way, knowing that their friend is maybe dead somewhere,
Speaker 3: and he's just like besing with them at the campsite. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very more.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, do you guys have any s'mores? That sounds great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very like twisted mentality. But there are
Speaker 3: some there are some weirdos out there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I also wondered if, potentially.
Speaker 4: If he was on housed and he was just living
Speaker 4: out in the woods, and perhaps there was some sort
Speaker 4: of mental health situation that was why he was out
Speaker 4: in the woods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that would he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Explain the hanging out for six hours, but.
Speaker 2: You know, if there was.
Speaker 1: Something undiagnosed or it could have been diagnosed going on,
Speaker 1: that would explain perhaps him not having any awareness that
Speaker 1: this was like a very weird and uncomfortable situation and
Speaker 1: you should leave right. But again, there was no details
Speaker 1: other than him cocking the gun and just hanging out.
Speaker 1: There was no description of his behavior or what they
Speaker 1: talked about, or his mannerisms or anything like that. Then
Speaker 1: there's the cabin near Pinecrest, which Mike's brother had said
Speaker 1: that a witness reported seeing Mike there at that cabin,
Speaker 1: And if that's accurate, we have a whole new set
Speaker 1: of questions. Who was at that cabin because Mike hadn't
Speaker 1: booked a cabin, Did Mike know who was there? Was
Speaker 1: he just in the area, did he encounter someone before
Speaker 1: getting back to the campsite. Did something happen at this
Speaker 1: other location, and police didn't know about it, so they
Speaker 1: weren't able to fully investigate.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, yeah, a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that of known killer Carrie Stainer. He
Speaker 1: operated in this general area of California for the years
Speaker 1: before he was arrested in nineteen ninety nine, so he
Speaker 1: obviously his crimes were committed prior to that.
Speaker 2: I think he killed four people in Yosemite area, and.
Speaker 1: Investigators did look at a possible connection to Mike's case
Speaker 1: and several other unsolved disappearances and deaths in this area
Speaker 1: at this time. Both the geography and the timelines overlap,
Speaker 1: but there weren't any other connections to Mike's case, and
Speaker 1: the FBI agent who had taken the confession says that
Speaker 1: he didn't believe that Stayner had killed any more people
Speaker 1: than he had confessed to.
Speaker 2: Okay, And it's always interesting.
Speaker 1: Obviously this FBI agent or whoever probably had to develop
Speaker 1: some sort of relationship with this person.
Speaker 2: But it's always interesting when.
Speaker 1: They're like no, no, Like I know he's a killer
Speaker 1: and he lied to us before, but I believe him now.
Speaker 3: But I'm going to take his word for this.
Speaker 1: But I also I kind of feel like you do
Speaker 1: get a sense of when you're being lied to or
Speaker 1: when someone's telling the truth. And at some point, if
Speaker 1: you're going to jail for killing four people, admitting to
Speaker 1: killing additional victims is probably not going to change the
Speaker 1: outcome of your prison sentence, right. That's just my thought.
Speaker 3: But sometimes they like to play that power trip with
Speaker 3: authorities as well, because they're like, I do have information
Speaker 3: on more, but I'm not going to give it to you,
Speaker 3: And what are you going to do about it? I'm
Speaker 3: already going to prison. You can't beat it out of me.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting here on this information that you guys
Speaker 3: would do anything to get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, man, there's some crazy people out there.
Speaker 3: There are.
Speaker 1: With many missing details and the contradictory witness statements, this
Speaker 1: was a really tough case for me to come up
Speaker 1: with what I personally think happened.
Speaker 2: Do you have a gut feeling at all?
Speaker 3: I don't want to make the bold assumption that this
Speaker 3: guy had anything. What was his first name again, Joseph, Joseph,
Speaker 3: we could call it.
Speaker 2: I should have called him Joey. I don't know if
Speaker 2: he went by Joey, But Mike didn't go by Mikey, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, come up with your own nickname for him. So
Speaker 3: I don't want to just assume the worst, like he
Speaker 3: had something to do with what happened to Mike, but
Speaker 3: you'd also like to I mean, even when there's no
Speaker 3: other party involved. Obviously, people go hiking or camping and
Speaker 3: are never seen again and there's no trace of them.
Speaker 3: I'd love to know the status of the vehicle. I'd
Speaker 3: love to know the search radius, you know, the thoroughness
Speaker 3: of the search. Did he go for like a little
Speaker 3: daytime hike or walk about with Matilda waiting because he
Speaker 3: knew his friends were going to get there that night,
Speaker 3: but then something happened, and then it was just pure
Speaker 3: coincidence that Joseph comes out of the woods near the
Speaker 3: campsite after he's not returned. I don't know, there's just
Speaker 3: like there's a lot to speculate on, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm hesitant to to lean into that, but it's it's.
Speaker 1: Very preceling, and it's it wouldn't be super unusual for
Speaker 1: someone to be carrying a gun in a very remote
Speaker 1: area like this. But when I think of people carrying
Speaker 1: a gun, I don't mean like carrying it in their
Speaker 1: hand like it is in a holster on their purse.
Speaker 1: That's a very different vibe than oh yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to carry this in my hand.
Speaker 3: In my want at least, yeah, I want to know
Speaker 3: where Joseph came from, Like where had he been to
Speaker 3: find his way to this campsite. I'm curious about that,
Speaker 3: like if they were ever able to confirm that with him, Like, Hey,
Speaker 3: you kind of came out of the woods and that's fine,
Speaker 3: but where were you coming from and where are you staying?
Speaker 3: And if you were just walking through the woods at
Speaker 3: two am, why did you only have a gun and
Speaker 3: not gear that would help you navigate the woods at night.
Speaker 3: There's just it's a little a little suspicious.
Speaker 2: I had that same thought.
Speaker 1: Like five minutes before we sat down to your record,
Speaker 1: I searched just his name California, So I'm like, what's
Speaker 1: his story? Did he have any type of criminal history before?
Speaker 2: Did he after this incident?
Speaker 1: You know, I was trying to find more about him,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really get a whole lot more about him,
Speaker 1: but I did come across an article that I quickly
Speaker 1: read through, and this article gives a totally different account
Speaker 1: of first of all, how the friends ended up at
Speaker 1: the campsite. This article says that it was a surprise visit,
Speaker 1: that the friends are like out looking for meteors and
Speaker 1: they were on the same road, so they just thought
Speaker 1: they would stop by the campground. But based on how
Speaker 1: this location is described, it's not a place that you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I'm just gonna stop by.
Speaker 2: You're either going there or you're not right.
Speaker 3: And if they were just stopping by, did they pack
Speaker 3: their car, were they planning on staying out there, or
Speaker 3: was it literally a pit stop out in the woods
Speaker 3: to visit your friend who you know is camping out there.
Speaker 3: It would also.
Speaker 2: Also be weird. It's nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: You can't text your friend and say like, hey, you're coming,
Speaker 1: You can't call, you can't stalk them on find my friends.
Speaker 1: So you're just gonna ride through this camp ground in
Speaker 1: the dark, hoping you can find your friend's campsite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all a bit I don't know it was
Speaker 3: it strange?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this article also indicated that the family was
Speaker 1: suspicious of the friends, and that maybe even.
Speaker 2: Mike's father was involved somehow.
Speaker 1: So I do want to go back and read through
Speaker 1: this article again, but I initially scrolled right to the
Speaker 1: battom and I was like, do they list their sources?
Speaker 1: So I'm like, where did they get this information? And
Speaker 1: there's no sources listed. So I am going to go
Speaker 1: back and read through it again and maybe I'll post
Speaker 1: it to Patreon. Maybe we'll do like one of those
Speaker 1: anybody can access posts, because this article had completely different
Speaker 1: information than any of the other things that.
Speaker 2: I had read.
Speaker 1: Because I did think it was very strange that none
Speaker 1: of the articles indicated how many friends were there.
Speaker 2: They're just friends.
Speaker 1: There was one strange outdoors article that mentioned one of
Speaker 1: the friends' names, but nowhere else did I see how
Speaker 1: many friends.
Speaker 2: No one's name was listed, which I thought was not
Speaker 2: totally unusual, but.
Speaker 1: Typically you at least get he had three friends, or
Speaker 1: I don't know, at least a little.
Speaker 2: More detail than the no detail that this case seemed
Speaker 2: to have. So I will share this on.
Speaker 1: Patreon and maybe we can have a discussion there because
Speaker 1: this article, I'm like, is this even the same case,
Speaker 1: because this is totally different than everything I had read
Speaker 1: prior to, you know, the ten minutes before we're going
Speaker 1: to record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, i'd be curious to hear what other people think.
Speaker 2: Mike Madden was twenty years old.
Speaker 1: He had left a note, he had taken his dog,
Speaker 1: and he'd gone somewhere he loved or he had been before,
Speaker 1: somewhere that likely felt very safe to him. His domains
Speaker 1: have never been found, and his case is still open.
Speaker 1: His mother passed away in two thousand and four, and
Speaker 1: then his father died in two thousand and eight. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: his mother's obituary listed Mike as a survivor, and his
Speaker 1: father's listed him as being predeceased.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: I do really like obituaries. I know that's a very
Speaker 1: weird thing to say, but I just think they tell
Speaker 1: you can tell a lot about a person by the
Speaker 1: way their loved ones have basically summarized their lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, sometimes in a good way and sometimes not
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 1: So it is interesting that perhaps whoever wrote these obituaries
Speaker 1: knew that each parent had a different view of what
Speaker 1: happened to Mike or where Mike was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that is definitely a puzzling one. So if
Speaker 3: you have any thoughts or opinions or more information on it, yeah,
Speaker 3: you feel free to, you know, comment. Where you listen
Speaker 3: or reach out to us on socials and we'd love
Speaker 3: to hear it.
Speaker 1: I think this would be a really good case for
Speaker 1: people to share their thoughts or theories, and it's a
Speaker 1: good one to kind of have a discussion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, all right, Well until next time.